And no wonder skeptical readers and leaders want to "widen the net" to include new topics drawn from general science or (as Kurtz suggests) "biogenetic engineering, religion, economics, ethics, and politics."

What unifies us is a commitment to a way of finding out, not a set of conclusions. We're here to promote methodological doubt and the other tools of scientific inquiry.

Skepticism does not equate to atheism any more than science does. Remember that when Kurtz started the original skeptics organization, CSICOP, he started the humanist organization separate from it, and it made logical sense then and still does, even if many atheists think they can co-opt the term skeptics for themselves. Skepticism is inclusive of everyone who loves science’s discoveries, appreciates the scientific method as a way of explaining nature, and who values critical thinking. We don’t need to, and shouldn’t erect ideological barriers for membership in this collective.

As it happens, belief in dowsing rods is killing people right now. AIDS denialism, anti-vaccine hysteria, and other pseudoscientific medical beliefs have cost hundreds of thousands of lives in recent decades. Dealing with those testable pseudoscientific topics may or may not be as important or interesting as other causes, but it is important enough — and that is the task that the skeptical project was conceived to pursue.

Redefining skepticism away from its core topics may tell us what new skeptics find interesting, but it does nothing to solve the problems (however unsexy, and however niche) that skeptics organized to confront in the first place.

Moreover, we already have words and movements that mean “rationalism” and “atheism.” Why fight to give “skepticism” meanings it has not had in the past, when we have other words that already do mean those things?

As Carl Sagan put it, “By making pronouncements that are, even if only in principle, testable, religions, however unwillingly, enter the arena of science.”

Where this gets sticky is claims that cannot be tested, even in principle. As Sagan went on to explain,

Religious doctrine that is insulated from disproof has little reason to worry about the advance of science. The grand idea, common to many faiths, of a Creator of the Universe is one such doctrine — difficult alike to demonstrate or to dismiss.

You can use skepticism to support your conclusion, but others can reach different conclusions. If someone concludes “There’s not enough evidence to support this belief, but it gives me comfort so I’m going to choose this” there is nothing skepticism can say about it.