In article <47578a92$1@news.povray.org>, nos### [at] nospamcom says...
> On Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:25:23 -0800, Darren New wrote:
> 
> > Jim Henderson wrote:
> >> I might go as far as saying "This drug has not been proven to cause
> >> cancer", but I don't know that "This drug does not cause cancer" is
> >> something that would not be disproven over time.
> > 
> > We're speaking scientific proof here, which is always open to revision.
> > You can certainly prove that to a statistical degree, certain things
> > don't have certain properties.
> 
> True, but when it comes to scientific proof of something "supernatural",
 
> there's always room for doubt (as there's always room for some degree of
 
> doubt in a scientific proof).  Most who ask for proof of God's existence
 
> are looking not for scientific proof, but absolute proof.  Perhaps you 
> are different from most who engage in this type of discussion.
> 
I would certainly hope so, since even using the terms "proof" or 
"proven" are an abomination in science. You can use them in math, 
because they means something very specific in that context, which isn't 
the same as the general use of them. In general use, for **virtually** 
everyone, the term "proven" implies that you have the right answer, and 
its impossible for further evidence, discussion or data to change the 
result. While I am sure some scientists fall for this thinking on 
occasion, in my experience its **usually** only outside their own field 
of study that they do so. Within their own fields they are very careful 
to avoid such silly errors, and when they don't, they often find 
themselves without jobs (unless they go work for the Discovery Institute 
anyway..).

That said, I bloody well hope Darren isn't looking for "proof", just 
evidence. ***Any*** evidence, that doesn't add unneeded complications, 
isn't arbitrarily central to the person making the claim, instead of the 
claim itself, can't be better explained by far more well known things, 
or isn't so vague and unspecific that its impossible to discount 10,000 
other possibilities in favor of the one some believer insists has to be 
the answer.

Put simply, the evidence has to meet *at least* the standards used to 
imply that Big Foot exists, which despite how unlikely, unbelievable and 
probably hoax based, never the less contains enough points of 
contention, enough unknowns and enough uncertainty that it *might* be 
true, unlike pretty much **every** claim made about miracles, or other 
'evidence' ascribed to the God hypothesis. And if you can't even beat 
out Big Foot, with respect to the evidence available and likelihood of 
your existence, there is a serious problem. lol

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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