So first, have we gotten more skeptical?
Jay thinks we have, overall. Our science has progressed a great deal. And our ability to get information with the internet is so much more profound now. But the number of people who believe in woo hasn't gone down.
Rebecca is very optimistic. It's not necessarily about the number of people who believe in weird things, but that we are neutering superstitions and myths and turning them from something dangerous into something that is just a pastime for the wealthy.
There's still a tremendous amount of work to go when it comes to dangerous pseudoscience and superstition, but in general we're doing OK. Our scientific knowledge is growing, and will continue to grow into the forseeable future.
Bob can see it going either way. Skepticism has grown by leaps and bounds in the last 20 years or so, but irrational beliefs have also grown. We'll never get rid of superstitious belief, but in the future it could be marginalized to a degree we haven't seen. But it could also totally go nuts, totally descending into superstition. As science gets more and more complicated and technological, I could see people just giving up on it, and treating it like a religion, that it's so complicated that you have your "techno-priests" that nobody can understand. Who knows if they're telling the truth.
