In a previous article "Bob White" <threeball@hotmail.com> writes:
:
;
:"George Dance" <georgedance@hotmail.com> wrote in message
;news:6312c50b.0308281004.c8acaca@posting.google.com...
:
;
:> ...
;> But "It is reasonable to presume that a god exists" and "It is
:> reasonable to presume that no gods exist", being contraries, can both
;> be false (though they cannot both be true).
:
;
:Except that "The only reasonable presumption is the null, 'There are no
;gods' " is not an assertion standing in need of proof that it is true, it is
:a basic principle of logical, scientific investigation, already established
;as such eons ago:
:
;The basic principle of logical, scientific investigation which governs any
:situation of this type:
;
:"Argument _ad ignorantiam_ means 'argument from ignorance'. This fallacy
;occurs whenever it is argued that something must be true simply because it
:has not been proved false. Or, equivalently, when it is argued that
;something must be false because it has not been proved true. (Note that this
:is not the same as assuming that something is false until it has been proved
;true, a basic scientific principle.)" --
:http://www.smouse.demon.co.uk/logargnew/laign.htm
Yes, again. Loud and clear: "even though this is violates the principle
of sound argument" scientists do it anyway because their only purpose of
doing so is to try to prove it false.
See below?
;There are no ET's. (null hypothesis).
:
;... [W]e now design an experiment (Project Argus, for example) to try to
:prove that statement wrong, recognizing that it takes only one clear,
;unambiguous counter-example to reject the null hypothesis. ...
:
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;
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