--- sandeep heble <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I think the point Dr. Helekar is making is quite > clear: why should an anecdote, which can tend to be > inspiring by itself, be exaggerated and fabricated > and then be presented as fact? Can we not call a > legend a legend, a tale a tale, a myth a myth and a > true story a true story? Why is there a need then > to resort to falsehoods? > Mario replies: Hey, Sandeep, calm down, man. I did not disagree with what Santosh said. However, all I asked was for the baby to not be thrown out with the dirty bathwater, if at all possible. And most child psychologists will tell you that the "falsehoods" we tell our children growing up, like the Santa Claus and Easter Bunny "urban legends", are actually good for their development, or at least not harmful.
During the AIDS-infected needles fiasco, the purists were all bent out of shape over the hoax, to the point of enunciating a hoax of their own that I was defending the original hoax which was almost immediately exposed by George Pinto, which I never did as the archives will show. If they hadn't been so self-righteous they would have known that I did not perpetuate the original hoax, and would have had no reason to oppose the common-sense suggestion I continued to make that people should watch where they sit in a public place, because the fact that the probability of infection from such needles is "low", this does not mean the possibility is "no, and the consequences and lengthy testing are horrendous, even if it turns out there is no infection.
