No, you failed MY scenario.
If you want to keep harping on that, fine.
Yes, I failed the scenario, but it wasn't because of skepticism. It is because of two things: I am not a general, and I misinterpreted what was said.
I thought that, in your original post, you said that the artillery were advancing, not preparing to fire. This meant that I thought I had time to confirm what was happening before the original assault. An undefended artillery battalion is a really bad move by the enemy; my initial thought was that it was a trap, so I ordered more scouts to see if it was clear or not.
If you want to claim victory over skepticism for my mistake, feel free, but it doesn't work.
Because, in the conditions that
I wrongly understood it to be, my action was the correct one. In
your scenario, which I only know understand, you're right. The correct - and skepticism-approved, by the way - course of action is to send out troops to destroy the artillery.
This isn't because it is absolutely confirmed that the artillery is undefended. It is because it has to be assumed that the artillery can be destroyed, whether or not it is undefended; if the artillery can't be taken out, the battle is lost.
I never questioned that the scout had seen artillery. My question was whether or not the artillery was actually undefended.
As with the glowing fish scenario, skepticism turned an accurate report into 'crazy'
No, it didn't. Why must you continue to strawman?
Skepticism only says that it is possible that the reporter was mistaken, and that, unless the fish is actually found, we still don't have proof of its existence. It doesn't say that the reporter is crazy. It is when the reporter spends fifty years and thousands of dollars looking for this fish and keeps returning empty-handed, yet still maintains that he was entirely and absolutely correct that it crosses the line into crazy.
Ignoring the first report and demanding verification before taking action doesn't change the reality. In fact, at times it can be downright detrimental.
Of course it can. But that's not what skepticism says to do. Skepticism doesn't say that we have to ignore the first report. It just says that we can't always take the first report as proof of something unless we have supporting evidence.
Take your artillery example. The scout comes back with a report of undefended artillery. Do we question that he saw artillery? No; that's a mundane claim. We're in a war. We know there are artillery units involved. We question whether or not the artillery is actually undefended, because that's an unusual scenario. Artillery is vulnerable, and therefore usually has some other unit assigned to it as a bodyguard. We can accept the scout's word that the artillery is there, but taking his word for it that the artillery is undefended is idiotic.
