Joe Bloggs
Sponsor: HiByMember of the Trade: EFO Technologies Co, YanYin TechnologyHis Porta Corda walked the Green Mile
I was reading up on the important links pinned to the top of this forum, and I thought the "Burden of Proof" link and "A post describing how science works" would make an interesting discussion in combination.
Firstly, we see KeithEmo outlining the scientific method. Which is fine as it goes, but it was posted as a refutation of Steve Eddy's post, which was an invocation of the burden of proof.
An article describing the burden of proof is also pinned to the top, so it may be assumed that the management believes in its utility at some point.
Now, I can't say whether they think Steve's invocation of the Burden was improper, or whether they just thought Keith's recitation of the scientific method was a good one. But either way, I would like to note that I've never seen a case where invoking Burden of Proof has convinced anybody in real life, much less in internet forums.
The reason for this is the lack of shared knowledge.
For example, the example given in the article for an assertion that needed burden of proof was "a teapot orbiting the sun somewhere between Earth and Mars. The burden is on him to prove it, because we know that no manned craft has ever orbited between Earth and Mars, much less thrown out a teapot in its journey.
But what if, in an alternative universe, humans have settled Mars, make regular sightseeing trips in orbit between Earth and Mars, and such tourists have been known to regularly chuck all manner of junk out of their ships much like we litter the ocean in pleasure yachts every day?
Then it would be very hard to invoke the Burden convincingly.
In online forums, and especially in audio, what people "know" about a subject can be as divergent as the two alternate universes outlined above.
As a matter of practicality, it seems that, before the Burden can be invoked, you have to share with the audience all the facts you know that make the claim an unlikely one. And then you may just as well be forgetting about the Burden.
As another matter of practicality, saying that your opponent has to prove his claim to be true is by itself obviously not useful to convince him that his claim is false--at best it serves as a (shaky) argument to convince the audience not to take his claim at face value.
But in online forums we're always concerned with what the vocal opponent has to say, not what the silent audience thinks
Thus I'll be detailing in a later post why I think that the lowpass filter of DACs would not affect vertical imaging (or at least, that one holds the "burden of proof" to prove otherwise)
Firstly, we see KeithEmo outlining the scientific method. Which is fine as it goes, but it was posted as a refutation of Steve Eddy's post, which was an invocation of the burden of proof.
An article describing the burden of proof is also pinned to the top, so it may be assumed that the management believes in its utility at some point.
Now, I can't say whether they think Steve's invocation of the Burden was improper, or whether they just thought Keith's recitation of the scientific method was a good one. But either way, I would like to note that I've never seen a case where invoking Burden of Proof has convinced anybody in real life, much less in internet forums.
The reason for this is the lack of shared knowledge.
For example, the example given in the article for an assertion that needed burden of proof was "a teapot orbiting the sun somewhere between Earth and Mars. The burden is on him to prove it, because we know that no manned craft has ever orbited between Earth and Mars, much less thrown out a teapot in its journey.
But what if, in an alternative universe, humans have settled Mars, make regular sightseeing trips in orbit between Earth and Mars, and such tourists have been known to regularly chuck all manner of junk out of their ships much like we litter the ocean in pleasure yachts every day?
Then it would be very hard to invoke the Burden convincingly.
In online forums, and especially in audio, what people "know" about a subject can be as divergent as the two alternate universes outlined above.
As a matter of practicality, it seems that, before the Burden can be invoked, you have to share with the audience all the facts you know that make the claim an unlikely one. And then you may just as well be forgetting about the Burden.
As another matter of practicality, saying that your opponent has to prove his claim to be true is by itself obviously not useful to convince him that his claim is false--at best it serves as a (shaky) argument to convince the audience not to take his claim at face value.
But in online forums we're always concerned with what the vocal opponent has to say, not what the silent audience thinks
Thus I'll be detailing in a later post why I think that the lowpass filter of DACs would not affect vertical imaging (or at least, that one holds the "burden of proof" to prove otherwise)
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