The skeptic doesn't deny man's ability to reach discrete truths after significant empirical observation, but he does insist that we recognize any supposedly definitive conclusions as the product of an often faulty biological processor whose contact with the objects of its analyses is mediated through dense and wildly distorting cultural and biological filters. We're working on a second hand basis here -- at best.

The funny thing about devout atheists is that many tend to be human triumphalists, with utopian -- borderline religious -- philosophies of the mind (or brain, depending). This from the same people who conceive of us as beasts pure and simple, the kith and kin of apes. Yet grandiose imaginings of our mental capacity persist in that camp. Consider Hitchens, whose sense of "right" and "wrong" is hyper-cultivated, and who possesses fraternal ideal that would put to shame the most zealous Christian millenarians.

I think science has managed to arrive at a number of impressively sound conclusions. Of course, most every one of them emerged in the last 2 or 3 of our species' 2000 centuries. And only with the ceaseless struggle of a class of highly intelligent specialists working 'round the clock.

Even those truths which appear most secure I take with a large grain of salt. After all, we're frail animals with limited perceptions, unstable starting points, shoddy reasoning powers; animals bound always to look through a mirror, darkly.

Put simply, when it comes to truth, our track record isn't very encouraging.