[Phil153]

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Our options are reject, accept, and hold. I claim that ‘hold’ is the most important and should be the most often used because everyone is ignorant of almost everything.

Do you accept, reject, or hold judgment regarding my claim?

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I reject some of your claims. Others I accept others. The hold part is me remembering and leaving it there for future reference.

I vehemently reject your final statement in bold. The world is full of useless and confused information and opinions. The ability to prune away the nonsense quickly and decisively is what defines an efficient thinker. For example, I placed Freud on hold for a little bit, until I read a few pages of his work, and then rejected him out of hand. There is nothing in his insight that gives me insights comparable to other fields of psychology or my own observation and introspection. His prose is deranged. Therefore, he is worthless.

Similarly with conspiracy theories like Nielsio's WTC stuff. I don't need to investigate every single claim to reject the theory out of hand. Credible expert testimony, Occam's razor, lack of a credible mechanism for the conspiracy, and my own basic understanding of physics and politics are enough to call the theory deluded.

Homeopathy is another example. I don't need to delve into hundred of pages of homeopathy theory to reject it. I need to know three things:
- Its theory is based entirely on a faulty premise: "something that causes disease symptoms in large quantities will cure it in tiny quantities"
- It make claims which have no known physical basis (water memory)
- No scientific studies have demonstrated its validity.

That's enough certainty to stake my life on it. No "hold" required. What you seem to be advocating is that we should not form a judgment until we've read all the theories of homeopathy and tested every claim for every illness that it's supposed to work on. Good luck with that. I only have 70 or so years to live, I'm going to reject homeopathy/ancient Jewish fables/WTC conspiracies/Freud out of hand and move onto something else.