ezkcdude;131893 Wrote: > I have to argue that it is a matter of semantics. In science (and I too > am a scientist, well, a lowly postdoc anyway) you typically try to > disprove a positive. Is that the same as proving a negative? Not > really. You take a hypothesis that "A causes B", and you show that "A > doesn't cause B." That is disproving a positive. Proving the negative > would be like trying to prove "A doesn't cause B." This is clearly much > more difficult, and why most people simply say "You can't prove a > negative." Maybe it's semantics, or maybe people are lazy. Either way, > I like to say "You can disprove a positive."
It's not a matter of semantics. In any logical system (that I know of at least) there is no distinction between "positive" and "negative" statements, so the claim you can't prove a negative is meaningless. In the real world, and in science, you can't prove anything, so again the statement is meaningless. All you can do is accumulate evidence one way or the other, and you can do it just as well either way. Anyway, please see the links from that google search - some of them are pretty good. -- opaqueice ------------------------------------------------------------------------ opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=26436 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
