What's the difference between credulous and skeptical?

Credulous


Definition:

  • (a.) Apt to believe on slight evidence; easily imposed upon; unsuspecting.
  • (a.) Believed too readily.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) When President Obama stands up and says - as he did when he addressed the nation in February 2011 about Libya - that "the United States will continue to stand up for freedom, stand up for justice, and stand up for the dignity of all people", it should trigger nothing but a scornful fit of laughter, not credulous support (by the way, not that anyone much cares any more, but here's what is happening after the Grand Success of the Libya Intervention: "Tribal and historical loyalties still run deep in Libya, which is struggling to maintain central government control in a country where armed militia wield real power and meaningful systems of law and justice are lacking after the crumbling of Gaddafi's eccentric personal rule").
  • (2) With much of the work supposed to be completed by December, it is stretching credulity to believe that much more than token consultations with patient groups can take place.
  • (3) This leads to the paradoxical result that some of our most famous and successful journalists are also the profession's most credulous sycophants.
  • (4) When 11,000 jobs and a lot of pensions are at risk over the collapse of the ailing store group from which he extracted £586 m, let’s not waste any more time on King Phil (I’ve informally stripped him of his knighthood), his hurt feelings or embarrassingly vulgar yachts, except to say that – yet again – that Tony Blair was a credulous sucker for a rich man with tax-shy habits.
  • (5) It doesn't exactly stretch credulity, however, to recognize that banks provide bonuses to the best producers – whether they produce derivatives, mortgages or foreclosures.
  • (6) Given the inertia on even the most modest legislative response to the mass murder of schoolchildren, those still credulous enough to believe that our governance is representative of popular will are either Barnum-sized suckers, or worse, tacit participants in tragedies soon to come.
  • (7) Credulous voters will agree and feel placated, but in actuality, such measures will make little if any difference.
  • (8) The Crown Prosecution Service should not be so credulous in future.” But the CPS expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the trial.
  • (9) I think he’s a dangerous manchild with an army of credulous misogynists at his disposal.
  • (10) Pretending that the government's current forecasts and plans are certain and reliable, when the ones made only three years ago turned out to be anything but, stretches credulity.
  • (11) What we see is not meritocracy at work at all, but a wealth grab by a nepotistic executive class that sets its own salaries, tests credulity with its ridiculous demands, and discovers that credulity is an amenable customer.
  • (12) The boy insists he is not among the stone-throwers, an assertion that stretches credulity.
  • (13) It strains credulity to accept that a secretary of state who handles all her communications on a home-brewed server never passed classified information,” Fiorina said.
  • (14) Hague's campaign included parading Kaminski before the Jewish Chronicle and the more credulous blogger Iain Dale at the party conference: Dale's interview is reprinted across five pages in Total Politics , of which Lord Ashcroft owns 25%.
  • (15) The pirate's credulity regarding the US authorities' bogus ransom negotiations may make for a happy ending, but it's also the moment when America's superpower seems almost tragically all-consuming.
  • (16) Kiev's police chief later claimed that he ordered the assault, but that strains credulity.
  • (17) That suggestion, which always appeared unsatisfactory, now stretches the bounds of credulity.
  • (18) Equally credulous were those who, on the Monday evening, circulated reports that rioters had broken into London Zoo – thanks largely to a single, poorly-lit picture of what appears to be a tiger on a stairwell , with the irresistible subject line: "Oh my god – reports of tigers roaming around Primrose Hill."
  • (19) But the manipulation does not just tell us how sly operators view the credulous masses, but how they see themselves.
  • (20) Ghosts are not phantoms floating on the periphery of village life, the concern only of children and the credulous.

Skeptical


Definition:

  • (a.) Of or pertaining to a sceptic or skepticism; characterized by skepticism; hesitating to admit the certainly of doctrines or principles; doubting of everything.
  • (a.) Doubting or denying the truth of revelation, or the sacred Scriptures.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Far from being depressed, the audience turned into a heaving mass of furious geeks, who roared their anger and vowed that they would not rest until they had brought down the rotten system The "skeptic movement" (always spelt with "k" by the way, to emphasise their distinctiveness) had come to Singh's aid.
  • (2) We intend to treat claims from the most powerful factions with skepticism, not reverence.
  • (3) But the question of what Wray will do after his tenure as FBI director may prompt some skepticism, the former agent said.
  • (4) Of these therapists, 78% reported that they had encountered intense skepticism from fellow professionals.
  • (5) Skeptics have disregarded that even lyophilized preparations of demonstrated activity will lose effect when stored above -80 degrees C. This explains some inconsistencies of results and difficulties in repetition.
  • (6) These stories play on half-truths, like the presence of far-right nationalists at Maidan, and reasonable doubt, like skepticism of western meddling.
  • (7) Louis Pasteur's vaccine against rabies, introduced 100 years ago, was greeted by the American medical community with a mixture of praise and skepticism.
  • (8) But first it has to get to the floor of the House of Representatives – where the leadership, which allowed a floor vote on Amash's amendment this summer, appears to take a more skeptical view.
  • (9) But the euro-skeptic outcome of the European elections posed risks to the single market and the economic recovery was "neither robust nor sufficiently strong".
  • (10) Outside of the potential abuses, there are other reasons to be skeptical of the cheerleading around the housing recovery.
  • (11) Some argue that the public accepts that modern medicine is effective, and others say that as a whole the public is skeptical about its value.
  • (12) PB Everything goes right for the Chargers You can forgive San Diego Chargers fans for being skeptical about their team's chances, and not just because their team only had a 1.6% chance of making the playoffs around Week 13 .
  • (13) Bradley argues that, while young people are generally good at spotting advertising, university prospectuses are different and can slip under the radar of skepticism.
  • (14) The problem of a hermeneutic psychiatry would be to steer between the Scylla of naive realism ignoring the major participation of the psychotherapist on the one hand, and the Charybdis of relativism, nihilism, and hopeless skepticism on the other.
  • (15) The evaluation and management of retinal ischemia from atherosclerotic carotid disease is in a state of flux reflected by the change from emphasizing surgical management in the '70s toward skepticism about the benefit of surgery in the '80s.
  • (16) Changes in nomenclature, while sorely needed, should be undertaken with appropriate skepticism and conservatism and should build upon the foundation provided by DSM-III.
  • (17) Thomas Jefferson, though generally skeptical of the medical treatments of his day, turned to laudanum in his later years to help ease his chronic diarrhea – an affliction that probably helped kill him .
  • (18) Many clinicians and radiotherapists are skeptical about the outcome of using radiosensitizers in patients.
  • (19) Surgeons commonly have reacted with skepticism to the introduction of catheter-based interventional approaches to treating coronary artery disease, prompted apparently, by a desire to protect what had been exclusively their turf.
  • (20) And theirs is not the only near-death story that has raised skeptical eyebrows – even among evangelicals.