Sir Paul Nurse, current president of the Royal Society, states in "Science Under Attack" (2011):
"the authority science can claim comes from evidence and experiment and an attitude of mind that seeks to test its theories to destruction. Skepticism is really important [...] I always tell my students and post-doctoral workers 'be the worst enemy of your own idea, always challenge it, always test it' [...] healthy skepticism [...] is a fundamental part of the scientific process."
Note: very nice.
