Hi again Dr Adequate,
Well, there's an absence of evidence of werewolves.
Which doesn't mean they don't exist, as you eloquently state:
Message 91: The
definition of a werewolf is simply someone who can turn into a wolf. Do they have to conform to your stereotypes of them?
Maybe they stay home with a dish of dogfood rather than going around drawing attention to themselves by mauling people. And why should they black out? Maybe they are fully conscious of being werewolves and are understandably discreet about it.
In which case why should anyone be concerned about their existence? Why would anyone need to carry silver for protection from such a non-threat?
Until there is evidence that one needs protection, one can be agnostic about, and one can have an opinion that they exist or one can have an opinion that they don't exist.
I don't normally feel I need to protect myself from mass murderers or terrorist types, even though there is evidence that these types of people do exist: my opinion is that I will not be harmed by them.
Because it doesn't go so far as saying that they probably don't.
And again, how do you calculate that probability in any way for it to make sense: if it is just your gut feeling about the relative likelihood, then it is just your
opinion (in which case you are really a 5 not a 6 on this issue and are telling yourself falsehoods about what you know or don't know).
And again, people act based on their opinions all the time: opinion is sufficient to affect behavior.
How would he know that if he had no way to detect electricity?
Well, if he had no evidence at all for the very existence of electricity, then he should certainly have doubted that it was present in lightning just as he should have doubted the presence of groosnarp and fleem.
The point being that the absence of evidence would be due to the absence of a means to detect electricity, not to the absence of electricity.
If you don't have a means to detect presence then you cannot test for when it is absent.
Do you have a means to test for the presence of lycanthropy in in your scenario of careful people "who can turn into a wolf"?
Message 91: Suppose someone decides to worship my left leg as a god. I believe in the existence of my left leg, but that wouldn't make me a theist, because
I wouldn't classify my leg as a deity.
Nor does it make your leg supernatural. A point that the Straggles and bluegenes seem to miss consistently when they make up caricatures of supernatural beings and claim that they should be considered to be supernatural.
You would need to show that there is some supernatural essence involved before one could say something is supernatural.
Do you have a means to test for the presence of supernatural essences?
Enjoy.
Edited by RAZD, : clrty