[BC] White House Just Evacuated

[Lamar Owen]

On Wednesday 11 May 2005 13:24, DANA PUOPOLO wrote:
> Prove they aren't....

Sorry, but the burden of proof is to prove that they are.  All manners of 
false accusations may be made that cannot be proven false;  the burden of 
proof must be in the affirmative, not the negative.  This is the basis for 
the concept of 'innocent until proven guilty': the prosecutor must prove to a 
jury or to a judge the affirmative that the defendant is guilty; the 
defendant is not required to prove their innocence, just prove that the 
prosecution cannot prove guilt.  Now, that's all nice in theory, but we know 
that in practice innocent people sometimes get convicted and guilt people 
sometimes get off; the system is certainly not perfect.

But the concept is sound even in the implementation is buggy.

To use an engineering example, prove to me that the magic smoke that is let 
out of a failing component is not what makes the component operate, and that 
we would be able to fix anything if we could just get the smoke back in.  Of 
course, you'll say that I need to prove that it can be done first, right?  So 
I need to prove the affirmative?  Why can't you prove the negative?  I could 
easily argue all day long, provide studies that show that every time a 
component fails, it loses its factory-provided magic smoke, etc.

Furthermore, prove to the list that you're not my alter ego. :-)
-- 
Lamar Owen
Director of Information Technology
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute
1 PARI Drive
Rosman, NC  28772
(828)862-5554
www.pari.edu