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From: Jasper
Date: Friday, October 20, 2006
Time: 05:55:20 PM
Solitairea1, …We are saying the same thing. Whenever any of us prefaces a sentence with the word “if,” we are stating a hypothetical case. We are not necessarily stating what we believe is true. We are merely establishing a concrete starting point for logical analysis. If it’s true that a chicken egg drooped on a marble floor from a height of six feet will break, you can test it by dropping a chicken egg on a marble floor from a height of six feet. IF it breaks you know that there is a good chance the proposition is true. IF you repeat the experiment a thousand times and the egg breaks every time, you know that it’s true. ……….. There are ways of getting around these testable propositions, most of which involve the way the proposition is stated. For instance, IF you don’t state an altitude requirement, you can “prove” that the proposition is false by dropping the egg from a height of a small fraction of an inch. IF you conjectured that the egg, when dropped from a height of six feet would break on impact with a cement surface you might not have consistent experimental success if you change the consistency of the cement. Wet cement of the proper consistence could act as a cushion for the egg sufficient to keep it intact. ………. That’s the problem with O.J. using ANY hypothetical argument to state the case that he did not commit the murders by showing the flawed logic of what the results would be IF he did. He doesn’t understand the architecture of these arguments well enough to make them effectively. The only thing the unnamed “source” had to do to make anything you said hypothetically was to INTERPRET it as a confession. How many times have wee seen this? And how many times did it stand up to independent analysis? ……… The National Enquirer is no stranger to lawsuits. It has won some and lost some (the losses are figured into the price of the paper). I do not believe, however, that there is anything in that article about the book that will be actionable IF O.J. did, indeed, participating in the alleged book project. It would be libelous only if the Enquirer published it with knowledge that it was false or eschewed reasonable efforts to ascertain the truth and did so with malice. These jokers learned a long time ago that the news business is not the truth business. “O.J. Confesses” cannot be true but it is news. –Jasper