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Subject:Re: OT: Sturgeon's Law and other eponymous laws From:sphilip <philstokes03 -at- googlemail -dot- com> To:lcortese -at- townisp -dot- com Date:Mon, 10 Sep 2012 20:15:15 +0700
As I already said, it falls far short of the standards of evidence required in either science or logic for accepting a novel claim as true. In science, that means you have to give some evidence for believing it based on either observation or confirmable prediction. In logic, that means you have to show how the claim follows logically from the premises. Both of these standard criteria seem absent, though I'm willing to consider any that you want to bring forward.
Whenever someone makes a novel claim in any discipline, the onus of proof is on the person making the claim. What is the evidence that Sturgeon's law is true, apart from your personal opinion? I don't need to prove it's not true any more than I need to prove that fairies don't exist. In both cases, there's simply no good reason to accept the proposition in the first place.
On 10 Sep 2012, at 20:08, lcortese -at- townisp -dot- com wrote:
> I say it's valid and you say it's not valid? Prove it.
>
>
>> On 10 Sep 2012, at 02:19, lcortese -at- townisp -dot- com wrote:
>>
>>> On what evidence? The best kind, life experience.
>>>
>>> There's nothing irrational about it. Sturgeon's Law is an estimable
>>> reflection on the nature of reality.
>>>
>>> Larry
>>>
>>
>>
>> One man's hand is another man's fist. This kind of anecdotal evidence
>> falls far short of either the standards of empirical evidence or logical
>> validity required to establish something as either an empirical
>> generalisation or universal truth.
>>
>> P
>>
>>
>
>
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