Abigail Brady wrote:
On 12/8/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Since there are only two such occasions it should not be difficult to identify the two episodes.
Ah, but how do you source the fact that it isn't seen in any other episodes? This is not a facetious question by the way.
We can't prove a negative, and a single counter example will disprove the claim. In the history of Fermat's Last Theorem the maddenining thing was thatfor three centuries nobody could find the example to prove him wrong. Proving him right took an enormous effort by many many people, and I still help but feel that a simple elegant proof is just around the corner. In law this is the fundamental reason why a defendant should not be required to prove his innocence.
To say "There are no such episodes" is presumptuous. However, even though it sounds weasely, one can note that he has been unable to find any such episode.
Do we have something against academic fraud: such as, say, adding something as a "Source", apparently without having read it, or even having a good idea of its contents from other sources,
That would be a different matter.
Ec