It's more of an "intellectually lazy ego indulgence" than true skepticism. It's a false skepticism. Not that there's anything wrong with it, it's part of being human. I'm often guilty of it and I don't think there are people who aren't.
Getting a really rich definition of skepticism helped me make what I came to understand is a very important distinction. Link, In case anybody is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kzZdps9PG4
I love when you get people complaining about sample sizes, yet the effect is huge and significance levels are minuscule.
Yes, significance testing has some flaws, but they mostly show up at the margins, and complaining about sample sizes has nothing to do with that anyway.
I would prefer being skeptical instead of blindly accepting things. This behavior will instigate another to provide evidence or a counter-argument. This makes for great discussion, in most cases I think it is healthy.
It's easy for what passes for a skeptical attitude to actually _be_ a blind acceptance. Whether of another implicit and unexamined paradigm that one is operating from, or just a dissonance-triggered knee-jerk. It's a very sneaky self-deception, false skepticism.
OP's comment casts doubt on the validity of the article's conclusions. Maybe OP didn't look into it as much as others. The response to OP reaffirms the validity and sways my skeptical mind. I enjoyed both comments; indeed good discussion.
I thought I was the only one who noticed this! Seems very popular and common in forums like HN and Reddit, but less so elsewhere.