Alexandra asked:

Why are people skeptical?

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This is a rather odd but very interesting question. First, is it a philosophical question? I'm not sure that
it is. Certainly, it seems true that in the Western philosophical tradition, skepticism is a normal, even a
preferred, stance. And this comes at least in great part from people like Socrates, who (as far as we
know) preferred death to being prevented from questioning his contemporary customs and beliefs.
For more on that, take a look at this recent book: Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their
Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson,by Jennifer
Hecht.

This might conceivably answer a question about the origins of a skeptical tradition, but I don't think it
answers the generalquestion of why people are skeptical. One could cite animal studies showing that
rats, cats, monkeys, and other animals seek outnew and unfamiliar stimuli... in other words, that we
all get bored and want something new; and that this might imply the beginnings of skepticism, i.e., the
rejection of the old for the new.

But even more interesting, I think, are some recent results in human development relating to infant
development and to moral development. First, you might look at:

Gopnik, A. and A. Meltzoff (1987). "The development of categorization in the second year and its
relation to other cognitive and linguistic developments." Child Development58: 1523-1531.

Gopnik, A. and D. M. Sobel (2000). "Detecting Blickets: How Young Children Use Information about
Novel Causal Powers in Categorization and Induction." Child Development71(5): 1205-1222.

Piaget, J. (1978). The grasp of consciousness.Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.

Zelazo, P. D. (1999). Language, levels of consciousness, and the development of intentional action.
Developing theories of intention: social understanding and self-control. P. D. Zelazo, J. W. Ostington
and D. R. Olson: 95-117.

Zelazo explicitly relates development to increasing 'degrees', to use a metaphor, of recursive
self-consciousness. That is, child development only occurs because children become more and more
able to, in effect, not merely be aware of, but to critique, to criticize, themselves... and so to alter
thinking, emotional responses, and behavior. Piaget might easily be read the same way, I believe.

As far as moral development goes, you might look at Dawson on Kohlberg: Dawson, T. L. (2002).
"New tools, new insights: Kohlberg's moral judgement stages revisited." International Journal of
Behavioral Development26(2): 154-166. A fascinating paper, which among other things, indicates
that 'an important prerequisite of moral development is direct and repeated experience with moral
conflict in social contexts'. Thus to progress morally, it seems, one must be forced to question one's
beliefs.

As you can see, then, skepticism is useful,perhaps essential,in intellectual, emotional, and moral
development.

Steven Ravett Brown