[WikiEN-l] The vexed issue of sources

[Ray Saintonge]

Abigail Brady wrote:

>On 12/8/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at 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