On 5/12/03 1:13 AM, "Brion Vibber" brion@pobox.com wrote:
On Sun, 2003-05-11 at 18:15, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Adam probably thinks that an encyclopedia should have facts laid out as such, not just vague guesses. It's understandable (although I don't agree with it) to present speculation as fact to mask uncertainty. Certainly other websites do it.
That is the exact opposite of acceptable. An encyclopedia must not present speculation as fact, as that would be a falsehood.
It may present the fact that there _is_ speculation. That's not the same thing.
A philosophical digression:
All facts are based on speculation at some point. "My eyes are blue" would generally go under the category of fact, not speculation, but that statement is actually a speculation, to wit: "The vast majority of the time I have observed the color of my eyes via reflective or photographic media, and the vast majority of time that others expressed a judgment about the color of my eyes, they have appeared to be blue; and as I assume that my memories and senses, the photographic and reflective media, and the judgments of others are reliable, and as I know of no situations in which people's eyes spontaneously change color, nor can I conceive of a mechanism by which my eyes would do so, I speculate that at this moment (and for the foreseeable future) my eyes are blue."
But it's easier to say "My eyes are blue", call it a fact, and move on.
It's debatable whether a verifiable speculation that turns out to be true is in any way distinct from a fact. Is "The sun will rise tomorrow" a falsehood? Is it not a fact? Does it become one retroactively when tomorrow comes?