Science Friday, you disappoint me
Apr. 18th, 2014 08:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thistlechaserOne of the many good things about Fridays is Science Friday, a radio show on NPR. They cover all sorts of science topics, bringing in experts from around the world to talk about them.
This morning my local NPR station ran the promo for today's show. The final segment they teased was "How science can't disprove that God exists!". Oh boy did that annoy me. Of course it can't. You can't prove a negative! GRRR!
Say I believed in Santa. How would you prove Santa doesn't exist? Search every inch of the North Pole? But duh, Santa is magical, his workshop is probably up in the clouds somewhere!
The person making the claim has the responsibility to prove it. I believe in Santa? I need to supply the proof. And the bigger your claim, the bigger the proof needed -- I better darned well come back with a clear photo of Santa and one of his flying reindeer on a leash!
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As usual when I write a ranty post, I get all paranoid that maybe I'm wrong. I've heard "You can't prove a negative" for years, but is that correct? So I googled around. Turns out the spirit of it is, but if you get picky, the letter of it isn't. You can prove something like "The ancient Egyptians did not play in the NFL", but for most things, it does hold true.
This morning my local NPR station ran the promo for today's show. The final segment they teased was "How science can't disprove that God exists!". Oh boy did that annoy me. Of course it can't. You can't prove a negative! GRRR!
Say I believed in Santa. How would you prove Santa doesn't exist? Search every inch of the North Pole? But duh, Santa is magical, his workshop is probably up in the clouds somewhere!
The person making the claim has the responsibility to prove it. I believe in Santa? I need to supply the proof. And the bigger your claim, the bigger the proof needed -- I better darned well come back with a clear photo of Santa and one of his flying reindeer on a leash!
---
As usual when I write a ranty post, I get all paranoid that maybe I'm wrong. I've heard "You can't prove a negative" for years, but is that correct? So I googled around. Turns out the spirit of it is, but if you get picky, the letter of it isn't. You can prove something like "The ancient Egyptians did not play in the NFL", but for most things, it does hold true.
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Date: 2014-04-18 03:42 pm (UTC)Damn. I thought something was fishy about that guy selling the Cairo Clippers jersey. Next I suppose you will tell me that the Bosporus Bombers don't really exist!
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Date: 2014-04-18 03:51 pm (UTC)Watch me crush dreams left and right~
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Date: 2014-04-18 08:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-19 01:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-19 11:26 pm (UTC)Also, I always forget that Memphis was a city in Egypt first.
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Date: 2014-04-19 11:54 pm (UTC)I was quite surprised to find it, too. I love those socks!
Memphis doesn't sound Egyptian at all to me, though I know it most as the city here, so that might be why.
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Date: 2014-04-20 12:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-19 12:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-19 10:43 pm (UTC)