On 08/08/2016 11:39 PM, David Roberson wrote:
I would hope that you could be convinced that Rossi is telling the
truth if he were to present a solid scientific proof to that fact. Is
that not giving him the benefit of the doubt? Can anyone be 100%
confident that he is completely lying?
As long as there is any question about the facts,
No. Wrong criterion. There will /always/ be some questions about the
facts.
The courts do not require guilt to be proved "beyond a shadow of a
doubt" or "beyond any question" or "beyond any possibility of error"
because it is almost never possible to prove /anything/ that definitely.
On the other hand, Rossi /has/ been proved to be a liar and a scammer
/beyond a _reasonable_ doubt/ which is the criterion jurors are
generally asked to apply. The number of unlikely assumptions which must
hold in order for him to be an honest researcher is vastly larger than
the number of assumptions which must hold if he is what he appears to
be, which is a greedy sleazebucket who's stealing money and wasting
everybody's time. Concluding in the face of the evidence that you /must
give him another chance/ is flat-out irrational -- i.e., it's an
emotional decision, not a reasoned one, because there is no reasonable
ground for concluding that.
If you want to waste time giving him endless chances to try yet again
and maybe this time produce an honest result that shows his equipment
really does work, feel free, but you are seriously wasting everybody
else's time by doing it here. At this time it appears that there's a
larger chance that you'll hit Megabucks than that you'll wake up and
find out Rossi was vindicated. (And that goes double if you actually
buy a lottery ticket.)
