From: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu (Robert McGrath)
Subject: Re: Exploration is not Technology
Keywords: mars observer, citys or rocks, confirmation one way or the other, side bets
Reply-To: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept of Computer Science
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 14:57:03 GMT

In article <1992Oct8.020918.25813@tamsun.tamu.edu>, cjr6495@tamsun.tamu.edu (C J Rogers (Chris)) writes:
|> In article <1992Oct7.213032.24367@m.cs.uiuc.edu> mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu writes:
|> >In article <1992Oct7.205618.23681@odin.corp.sgi.com>, rodb@slugo.corp.sgi.com (Rod Beckwith) writes in part:
|> 
|> >> [...]
|> 
|> >
|> >I'm typing as s-l-o-w-l-y as I can.  You are still not getting it.  Try
|> >to pay attention this time:
|> >   "out & out denial" is NOT "the mindset of the skeptic".  The mindset 
|> >   of the skeptic is "That's an astonishing claim, what is the evidence 
|> >   for it?"
|> 
|> WRONG!!  That is a cynic.  The midset of a skeptic is:
|>       "I am going to scoff at the very idea of this new notion
|>        until someone comes along with enough evidence to make me
|>        look like a blabbering fool!"
This is ridiculous.  Use a dictionary for gosh sake.  You have the
words "cynic" and "skeptic" exactly reversed.  Talk about looking
like a blabbering fool!  There's not much point in discussing this,
as we don't seem to be able to achieve a common terminology.


|> That is a lot of the problem that is surrounding the "face."  NO ONE KNOWS for
|> certain what it is.  Everyone has ideas, but those aren't proof.  I think the
|> big question is - will you be willing to accept the truth when it is 
|> discovered?
If you were paying attention, you'd find that ALL of the skeptics have
been saying all along that they--we--will revise our opinions when
new evidence arrives.  My question was whether the wonder-mongers,
who apparently can ignore 99.999999999% of the evidence about Mars,
will admit THEY were wrong.  

I might point out to you that I, for one, never used either the word 
"proof" nor the word "truth"--YOU are the one concerned with those matters.
I, for one, have been speaking of "evidence" and "possible hypotheses",
and such like.


|> >On the other hand, I'd probably have bet against him finding an unknown 
|> >continent.  Of course, he probably would have bet that way, too.  I'd
|> >also have bet him that he wouldn't make it to the indies.  He'd have taken
|> >that bet, but I wonder who would have paid off?
|> 
|> You would have.  Then when they actually discovered what they found, you 
|> could crawl out of your grave and take your money back.

You are confident that I would have paid off, but that shows that
you don't know me!  (Among other things you apparently don't know.)

As I might expect, you missed the subtle point here.  I was making
a bit of a joke. 

A DETERMINED, James Randi-ish, skeptic might have responded to 
Columbus's claims by demanding PROOF that it really was the Indies, 
rather than a hoax, a mistake, a lie, or whatever.   I mean, he could have
bopped over to Sardinia for a bit of a vacation, and then returned with
some cobbled up "artifacts" and "natives" (and how about a "shroud" or
two).  Europeans of that time would have only the foggiest notion of 
how to test the claim that some distant unfamiliar land-fall was or 
was not the indies.

|> "Ignorance is bliss, but intellegence is happiness" -- Yangthei
"Ignorance is curable, stupidity is permanent."  -- my dad.

-- 
  Robert E. McGrath
  Urbana Illinois
  mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu