Scientific Knowledge

I think Panda asked the question because your arguments lead people to the conclusion that you believe that there are cases where less evidence means greater likelihood of being real. In the case of Lord Voldemort you describe evidence indicating his fictional nature, and you're therefore willing to conclude he's fictional. But if someone mentioned someone you'd never heard of before and for whom you had no evidence in any direction, you would conclude it's more likely he's real than Lord Voldemort. I have to agree with this logic.But it would be nice if some clarity could emerge before you and Straggler set records for longest ongoing online discussion and for the discussion spread across the most threads. Hopefully someone will have a stroke of inspiration.--Percy

Gee, make my day, why don't you? You only need "text-align: center" in the table code, not the row codes, unless you want some rows centered and some not.--Percy

Given the length of his posts, is there anything RAZD hasn't already said? I'm curious, how many people actually read all of Message 205? Anyone? Are there many who share my objection to these repetitive hashes of text and quotes of things already said many times?Are those involved in this ongoing multi-thread discussion determined to continue until the other side says, "Oh, I guess you're right." Face reality, it ain't gonna happen.--Percy

Hi RAZD,From the outside looking in, you and Straggler (and possibly a couple others) are in your own little world. I know each of you feels the other is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, but I think many other people, even those who have a fair grasp of the issues, just see dense, impenetrable, repetitive prose.All of us have friends in real life who hold opinions that would engage us in endless intense and alienating discussions where no one would ever convince the other, but because they're our friends we just avoid those topics. Here in the online world people don't avoid topics, but you're no more likely to convince a person here than you are your friends in real life. Get realistic. It's time to drop this.Of course I don't think anyone will follow this advice, so my hope in my moderator role is to confine discussions like this to Coffee House and Free For All.--Percy

The <blink> tag doesn't work in all browers, for instance, it isn't supported by Internet Explorer, Chrome or Safari. Neither is the "blink" modifier to the CSS text-decoration attribute.A graduate assistant for one of my college courses would, if you didn't understand an explanation, repeat it in a louder voice. If was a very effective method for discouraging questions.--Percy

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."They may be confusing insanity with perversity, but you get the point.--Percy

In my view this thread showed that further discussion on the topic would be unlikely to be fruitful.--Percy