Introduction

"Science is about trying to eliminate pockets of ignorance." Adam Savage

I get curious about things.  Then I look them up and I'm Cliff Clavin for the next few days. I'm always paranoid that what I repeat might be wrong.  Did I remember it correctly? Did I understand it to begin with? Was it up to date?

I conceived this blog as a way to check myself and to exorcise the Cliff demon. The first steps languished in my online accounts for over a year. Then one Christmas one of my Cliff moments went awry.  I was bloviating about something I had read from what I thought was a reputable news source, but my audience knew more about the subject than I did. Even while being conscientious I was caught. How much more likely is it to get something wrong by even intelligent people who don't think to monitor themselves?

I realized what this blog really needs to be about.

This blog is about two things.

• An outlet for sharing my curiosity.
• An exploration of how to be sure of facts in an information sea when that sea is equal parts truth and equal parts nonsense.

The title of this blog is meant to be ironic.  Curiosity killed the cat, the old saying goes. Curiosity doesn't tend to kill anyone.  This blog is a post mortem, as it were, of the results of my curiosity.