From:	abortion_engine abortion_engine@*******.com
Subject:	[OT] Mysticism [Was: Re: On Cybereyes]
Date:	Tue, 14 Sep 1999 18:01:52 -0400

> With your own eyes? Or on the screen of a scanning tunneling microscope?

Well, duh. :)

> In person, or on a detector screen?

Oh, no, really, in person. Wait. No. :)

> I don't follow that logic there... how is it unjust? If *you*
> believe they're a fact, what does it matter what anyone else thinks?

It doesn't. Except to me. I just hate being annoyed, and other people's
incorrectness annoys me.

> >Some days I'm wrong. Sometimes I'm right. But I'm never "maybe."
>
> In "not yet proven one way or the other" cases, there are
> polite circumlocutions one can use to avoid provoking flamewars.

Ah, but that presumes I attempt to avoid conflict. I don't. Sometimes, that
makes people dislike me. It may get me kicked off the list, although I am
trying to be better. But it serves its purpose. [Which is not, in case
anyone was wondering, to make people angry. :)] I believe that without
controversy, there is very little questioning or change. And I like both. I
guess it's almost that simple, really.

> I'm sure you've heard all the "absence of evidence does not equate to
> evidence of absence" rhetoric. Do you have any friends who work in
> law enforcement? Ask them how divergent the accounts of witnesses
> to an accident are, mere minutes after it happens. Sometimes, you
> just can't get hard data.

Um. Yes. I do have a friend or two in the field. :) And yes, I know what you
mean. But a good investigator will find out what the facts were as best he
can anyway. But I know what you meant.