Abigail Brady wrote:
On 12/8/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)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