Though these probably are not the first words you have read here, they are the first I\u2019ve written so\u2026 Welcome to Skeptuppet.<\/p>\n
The goal here is to combine some of my interests, and in the process create something of use for others. The first is a surety, the latter is still in question.<\/p>\n
With Skeptuppet, I want to give out powerful skeptical tools in an easy-to-absorb and entertaining manner \u2013 with puppets! And here in the blog portion I\u2019ll go on (and on) in greater, wordier depth. Perhaps the combination will work.<\/p>\n
I am, first and foremost, a skeptic. This doesn\u2019t mean cynic, which has its own combination of letters and meaning. A skeptic doesn\u2019t, as a rule, dismiss new ideas out of hand. What a skeptic does is refrain from fully embracing a new idea until its proved its worth. And even more importantly, a skeptic will GIVE UP and idea that is sufficiently shown to be incorrect by the current weight of evidence.<\/p>\n
The \u201csufficiently\u201d and \u201cevidence\u201d parts often cause some misunderstanding, just as the work \u201cskeptic\u201d sometimes does. (Though that is thankfully changing.)<\/p>\n
Evidence comes in a wide range of qualities, and there are many tools a skeptic can use to measure that quality and assign levels of confidence to an idea based on those measurements. Lots of poor quality pieces of evidence will never outweigh a single very high piece of evidence, for example \u2013 Something that doesn\u2019t fit with most people\u2019s common sense, particularly when we\u2019re using metaphors like \u201cweight\u201d. (Perhaps I should try to come up with a different metaphor in this blog\u2019s future\u2026) And a sufficiency is simply the summation of those quality measurements and the resulting press of truth-hood or fallacy that results.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all rather fuzzy, but darn if it doesn\u2019t WORK! You see, it doesn\u2019t matter if you measure that 2\u00d74 in feet, meters, or your arm, so long as you measure the car you want to transport it in with the same rule.<\/p>\n
Skepticism is the name for that consistent set of tools, rules, and techniques that helps us make good decisions. With consistency, we gain relative perspective. And with relative perspective, we can take great strides in the direction of truth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Though these probably are not the first words you have read here, they are the first I\u2019ve written so\u2026 Welcome to Skeptuppet. The goal here is to combine some of my interests, and in the process create something of use for others. The first is a surety, the latter is still in question. With Skeptuppet, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skeptuppet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skeptuppet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skeptuppet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skeptuppet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skeptuppet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/skeptuppet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6,"href":"https:\/\/skeptuppet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions\/6"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skeptuppet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skeptuppet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skeptuppet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}