On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 04:28:49PM -0500, David Nusinow wrote: > On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 09:10:45PM +0000, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > There is a massive difference between "working assumption" and > > "proven". > > > > "To use plausible arguments in place of proofs, and henceforth to > > refer to these arguments as proofs" was, I believe, originally > > referring to physics, but it was not intended as an example of what to > > do. > > You've still not presented an alternative. The alternative is that there is nothing interesting here. It's not a very interesting alternative. Occam's razor says we go with it until we have a reason to do otherwise. > The working hypothesis stands > simply because that's where the evidence points. The burden of > disproving it is on the naysayer. That's what science is, disproving > hypotheses by observations. Go for it. I hypothesise that you are a gerbil. Gerbils can't form rational arguments. Therefore you are wrong. Your burden-of-proof notion is completely backwards, and the above is an example of why. The burder of proof rests upon the one who wants to introduce an assertion. > > > > The anecdote presented was grossly mischaracterised and not an example > > > > of what it claimed to be. > > > There are other anecdotes. > > Which I was not talking about. Pay attention to the mails you are > > replying to. > > You replied to Manoj's mail, which was in the context of the larger > discussion. In addition to that, the example you cite is in the HOWTO, > which is a document written by a number of women who all share this > opinion completely outside of the specifics of the Debian proeject. Your > advice goes both ways. And here's what I said, quoting the entire text of the mail: > Hey, I remember that incident, and the author of the HOWTO has blown > it out of all proportion. Try talking to the people involved. Yup, precisely what I meant, and no references to anything else. What was that you were saying? -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- |
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