Almost-True
There are many ways for something to be only almost-true.
Facts are not necessarily true. For example, maybe it's a fact that Earth's sky is blue. But it's not absolutely true. It's just that things deflect light in different ways, and therefore they are perceived to have the colors we see. So it is not true that the sky is blue (as we can confirm by looking up at night).
Scientists deal in "prototruths," where science uses the "scientific method" to continually refine our knowledge base (in this case we don't expect our scientific facts to be proved entirely false, but we do expect to find out more of why things are the way that they seem to be).
Especially during the run-up to an election, there are sites dedicated to indicating how true the candidate's statements are.
We may know a lot about someone without knowing their basic motivations and the real reasons for their behavior. We watch for the Freudian slip.
Stephen Colbert introduced the world to the new word: "truthiness" to describe the apparent degree to which something might be true.
Types/Categories:
1. Degree of Truth: There is some truth to the statement. (The world is a ball. This particular diet will be good for you.)
2. Scope of Truth: The statement is true in a narrow sense (or limited sense). (The Earth is flat. Pizza is good for you. Washington is broken. Honesty is the best policy. There is only one real Darth Vader, and many imposters.)
Examples:
The real Darth Vader would never get on his tricycle without his lime-green popsicle.
The real Darth Vader is not this musical.
Nice teeth.
Me too.
At least that corroborated the story the boy heard on Mother's Day.
Links:
For an almost-fair, and almost-balanced almost-view of election issues:
| Almost-True | Comment |
| www.washingtonpost.com | Fact checking - find the level of almost-truthiness. |
