At 07:01 15-7-01 -0500, Erik Reuter wrote:
> > 1. I mentioned that NONE of those
> > documentaries/articles/groups/individuals ever claimed that nuclear
> > power is green. You then reply that many of them "post emotional
> > diatribes" and don't know what they're talking about, and even explain
> > that "many" means "some largish subset". In other words: some of
> > them (total group minus the largish subset) apparently DO NOT post
> > emotional diatribes, and actually do know what they are talking about.
>
>No, I didn't say that.
Oh, but you did!
I wrote:
>In my 34 years in this life, I've watched countless programs and read
>numerous newspaper and magazine articles about it, visited websites of
>various environmentalist organisations, and talked to many
>environmentalists (and became one myself). But NOT A SINGLE ONE of these
>sources ever claimed that nuclear energy is green -- they all claimed
>exactly the opposite.
You wrote:
>Many of the others that
>you mention post emotional diatribes that clearly show they do not
>understand or care about the math, science, and engineering details, and
>have dubious (or non-existant) references.
Since documentaries and magazine articles can't make/write themselves, they
have to be made/written by humans (more specifically: journalists).
Let's call the total group of these journalists A. You claim that "a
largish subset" of X "post emotional diatribes <etcetera>"; let's call this
subset B. B is a subset of A, which leaves us with a subset C, which is the
difference between A and B (C=A-B). The people in subset C are obviously
different from those in subset B, otherwise they would all have been
included in subset B.
If subset B is "people who post emotional diatribes <etcetera>", and C is
not the same as B, then C must be [NOT "people who post emotional diatribes
<etcetera>"]. In other words, people in subset C must be making sense.
>I have never seen any credible articles
>explaining that nuclear power is not green.
And I have never seen any credible articles explaining that nuclear power
*is* green. CAN YOU CITE CREDIBLE SOURCES?
>But I haven't seen all
>of the articles. Therefore I cannot reasonably say that all of them
>post uncredible articles, and so I say "many" because I have seen many
>uncredible ones. If you claim there are credible ones, then CITE SOME
>CREDIBLE SOURCES.
It's possible that you can give the exact number of articles you read (say,
because you saved copies of them), but it's not likely that you know the
exact number of total articles written. You can therefore not know with any
certainty how large the subset "many uncredible articles" is. It might just
as well be 0.1% of all articles -- which hardly qualifies as "many".
> > 2. Define "many" as used by you in "many of the others". How large is that
> > "largish subset"? Is it 50% of the entire group? Or 75%? Or perhaps even
> > 99.9%? Please provide the data to back up that claim.
>
>You first.
Hey, *I* am not the one accusing a large number of people of "posting
emotional diatribes that clearly show they do not understand or care about
the math, science, and engineering details, and have dubious (or
non-existant) references" without providing ample proof.
You know, people who have been accused of <whatever> without proof have
taken it to court, and won. So, back your accusations with proof that will
hold up in court, or keep your mouth shut. Remember that it takes only one
offended journalist to make your post a very expensive one.
> > Not that it makes much difference whether it's 90% or 10% -- it isn't
> > any less insulting to a large group of people. I can imagine that a
> > journalist (someone TRAINED and PAID to report FACTS) would consider
> > it quite insulting to be told "you have a 10% probability of being a
> > liar".
>
>If they feel insulted when they don't write a good article, then maybe
>they will be compelled to CITE SOME CREDIBLE SOURCES.
Accusing a specific journalist of writing a bad article is one thing.
Saying that many of them "write emotional diatribes <etcetera>" without
being able to prove it is something entirely different.
How would you feel if I'd tell the scientific community "not all of you are
honest, so every scientist has a 10% probability of being a liar who
falsifies his research data to get more funding", and not bother to proof it?
> > 3. Can you provide of list of the documentaries and articles that came out
> > in the last 3 decades that gave false information about nuclear energy?
> Can
> > you point out to us which individual journalists and environmentalists we
> > can or can't trust? You sound so sure of yourself in your semi-blanket
> > statement that you must have very detailed information about this.
>
>Can you CITE SOME CREDIBLE SOURCES?
Given your response, I doubt you can back up your claims.
Jeroen
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