Re: Just a single Question for the Candidates

[Matthias Urlichs <smurf@smurf.noris.de>]

Hi, Andrew Suffield wrote:

>> I can demonstrate evidence that I'm not a gerbil quite handily.
> 
> No you can't, because you're a gerbil and gerbils can't form rational
> arguments. It is logically impossible for you to disprove this,
> because your burden-of-proof notion is backwards (in formal logic,
> you've allowed a falsehood to be introduced, so it is impossible to
> draw any conclusions within the current situation).

Say, Andrew, are you playing Devil's Advocate here, or are you just plain
wrong?

Being a gerbil _is_, if not the falsehood, then the hypothesis to be
proven/disproven. Introducing that falsehood into the argument as an
axiom is not the fault of the non-Gerbil person, but the mistake
(deliberate or otherwise) of the perope accusing him to be one.

-- 
Matthias Urlichs