Much debate herein frequently turns upon the logical falsity of the shifting of the burden of evidence upon the positive, instead upon the negative. Hence the purpose in debunking that error.

My mistake was in failing to take into account the formatting of this forum. Try this instead: [foolquest.com] With wider margins, paragraphs can be longer, and shorter paragraphs become somewhat wispy.

Note that I have since posted a reformatted version.

@AaronAgassi No, thank you. I'm not interested in that site.

I've never had an issue with how this site formats posts.

Your post has not been reformatted.

@KKGator, scroll up! In a reply, I reposted reformatted

@AaronAgassi To be brutally honest with you, I no longer have any interest in whatever the post was about in the first place.

My mistake was in failing to take into account the formatting of this forum. Try this instead: [foolquest.com]

Note also that I have since posted a reformatted version.

Allamanda, stated topic of Philosophy & Meaning notwithstanding, might it have occurred to you that anyone posting on this forum might have blissfully slept through Philosophy 101?

@AaronAgassi AND just want him to speak like a normal human being, instead of a philosophy or legal professor?

@Storm1752 What, are we now writing dialogue for fictional characters? Because in fiction, that would be important. But I am not a fictional character. Thus my writing style need not strive to resemble the parlance expected of any given profession or kind of person. However, as I am indeed a living author, I can be reached with specific questions of particular ambiguities within whatever text.

@Storm1752 This author seems to be being deliberately obtuse. Classic example of covering up ignorance with verbiage. As Anne says, take out every third sentence and you want lose any clarity. (Or something like that)

@Geoffrey51 I am not an obscurantist.

@AaronAgassi fair enough, whatever you say.

Scroll down! I posted it again, reformatted.

Short attention.

@AaronAgassi No, you need to be concise and use paragraphs.

@Geoffrey51 Not tat I have replied to myself with a reformatted version, And I am concise.

@AaronAgassi Are you used to writing academic papers?

@Geoffrey51 I language/copy edit academic books and papers. Why do you ask?

@AaronAgassi Perhaps an abstract would be better presented.

It isn't a rutabaga! What of it? The legal presumption of innocence is only a special case of the logical principle of burden of evidence upon the positive. My point was that the same well familiar principles in law as applicable to a specific kind of assertion, assertion of wrong doing called: allegation and accusation, also apply more broadly to assertions in general, in reality even beyond law.

To wit: Much as with the presumption of innocence pending conviction or vindication, similarly hypotheses are assumed to be untrue until supported by evidence. And it would be no more sensible to shift the burden of evidence upon the negative than it would be to demand of the defendant to demonstrate innocence of utterly specious and unsupported allegations. And this is called: guilt by accusation. Because one cannot refute a negative. Few individuals maintain all embracing lifelong alibis.

And the process of elimination among viable hypotheses is already arduous, a process of elimination even of the most specious unsupported hypotheses would be utterly unmanageable. Again, it makes more sense to attack and defend viable hypotheses much as we only try suspects that have evidence against them. Again, its the same principle.

@AaronAgassi have you ever tried removing every third word so your meaning isn't obscured by verbiage?

@AaronAgassi Oookay then, it IS a lawyer's symposium.
Problem is, no matter what excellent points you're making, only a handful of people are going to parse your excessive legalese. Are you a bureaucrat lost in the bowels of some huge law conglomerate and get real frisky at the end of the day after your third Scotch?
Maybe if you use the Queen's English to explain to us your nuances, so as to make it an enjoyable read? I'm a journalist. In our parlance, you need to address your remarks to the "Kansas City Milkman," not to James Spader pretending to be a lawyer on "Boston Legal."
Otherwise, your keenly acute formalizations are quite impressive.

@Storm1752 I have indeed harbored a suspicion that on occasion there might not be whatever problems in comprehension, but a choice whether or not to engage, a choice that I must respect. Still, it isn't right to complain that one cannot understand, when the truth is that one somehow or other disapproves. For that matter, one may yet address content, even after critiquing style. And for those who actually do not understand, when they pose questions or cite specific ambiguities within my text, you can see that I do respond.

@AaronAgassi Okay, I'll go back and laboriously dissect your (I argue) deliberately obtuse, ostentatious prose, and see if I can glean your essential points, EVEN THOUGH it'd be easier of you voluntarily simplified, streamlined, and clarified the content.
I'll get back to you.

@Storm1752 Seriously, if I knew specifically whatever might be unclear, I would already have changed it.

@AaronAgassi In journalism, we learn to:
Tell them what we're going to tell them,
Tell them, then
Tell them what we told them.
Or, imagine an inverted triangle. At the top you give a clear, brief, precise outline of your central point. The "who, what, where, when, and how, in order of importance.
Next paragraph, the 'W' or 'H' of primary importance, and on from there.
Try it.
I for one tried going back and rr-reading your prose, but quickly lost interest (again). Put your point up front, free of clutter.

@Storm1752 If you will not stay engaged, then we cannot work together on any rewriting.

@AaronAgassi Are you okay? Whatever gave you the idea I was going to "work with" you on a rewriting?
You're smart, go ahead.

@Storm1752 I might not have used the Inverted Pyramid style, but I did begin explaining what I set out to do. I certainly hope that I have not buried the lead. However, broadest generalities of writing advice is no replacement for real copy editing into the text in detail.

@Storm1752 What would give me the idea of rewriting together? Only that if I already knew and understood whatever you do not understand and why so, I already would have addressed whatever the problem. Intersubjectivity, the condition wherein the understanding of the message recipient come into correspondence with the intent of the sender, required dialectic cooperation.

@Storm1752 you posted: "@AaronAgassi Okay, I'll go back and laboriously dissect your (I argue) deliberately obtuse, ostentatious prose, and see if I can glean your essential points, EVEN THOUGH it'd be easier of you voluntarily simplified, streamlined, and clarified the content.
I'll get back to you."

But now you just piss and moan. Allow me then to reiterate: No it is not easier for me to read your mind and guess what confuses you, than for you to just pick apart my text and show me. Look, do you want to do philosophy or don't you? Philosophy is that kind of effort.

Some have even opined that the mystics are simply jealous of all that science and engineering can accomplish.

Glad to hear it.

I am the author. I wrote the post. I don't plagerize.

@AaronAgassi okay. It needs to be stated then in case someone wants to reference.

@Geoffrey51 I don't see statement of authorship by anyone else when they post.

@AaronAgass Fair enough!

Hello? Scroll much?

@AaronAgassi You posted the reformatted version long after I posted my comment. I love Doctor Who. I don't have access to a TARDIS though.

Better, but you still need to work on saying what you want to say in as few words as possible. Wordiness is never elegance in writing.

@wordywalt No I don't! In the English language, we never use eight words when we can use twelve! Seriously, I disagree that wordiness is intrinsically inelegant. There are to many great writers of elaborated prose. Thus your contention stands refuted. For my own part, I needed to pack in different arguments and points of information clearly and efficiency. And I respect the readers ability to process them.

@AaronAgassi take out every third word, change if needed for clarity (surprisingly, hardy anything!) Then take out every 3rd sentence, and Viola! Something readable, as long as you make a few paragraphs!

Bigfoot comes only by way of example for purpose of illustration of a preposterous and utterly unsupported assertion. Imagine being challenged to refute such an unsupported preposterous assertion. One cannot refute a negative. Surely, it would be up to the proponent of such an assertion to back it up with evidence!

Good show! I await rebuttal from the believers.

"Skepticism in ancient times was based on the presumption nothing could be known for sure. It insisted the only logical position was complete open-mindedness."

This is what comes from perfectionism and insistence upon complete certainty which is impossible, leaving only two options: Irrational conviction or despair. Rejecting perfectionist demands for complete certainty, modern science instead proceeds in the ongoing process of elimination of unviable hypotheses, narrowing the field to whatever remaking viable hypotheses that can still be taken seriously. Thus modern science is Socratic, pursuing enlightenment by refutation, not certainty.

@Storm1752 It might be hoped your exposition satisfied whatever stylistic demands levelled against my post, if even my third version does not. And yet, no response. Go figure!

@AaronAgassi I was not aware of your third 'version' unless it is the above offering, about which I am intrigued.
(I never heard of demands leveled AGAINST a post...usually CHARGES or ACCUSATIONS are. DEMANDS are usually made ON a post.)
Anyway, it took some effort to unravel your verbiage, and I think I did a reasonable job, and yet...I feel some of your subtleties and nuance might've been lost.
About your assertion science never arrives at perfect certainty, I take pause. Is that true? Doesn't the scientific method settle on absolute fact sometimes? I don't know; I'm asking you.
They annoyingly call it the THEORY of evolution, for instance (a wording which leaves it open to constant attack by its some would say ignorant critics), though it is about as close as one can get to established fact. Why is that? In what way is it merely a 'theory?'
Your larger points seem seem legitimate yet somehow obscure. Are you drawing a distinction between Skepticism and Religion, saying one insisted on complete open-mindedness and the other on complete certainty? Certainty based on faith almost exclusively (along with the rare and exceptional saintly miracle, which supposedly proved the rule)?
Religion now has it's scientific apologists, some would say 'quack' scientists, who lend academic credibility to biblically-based nonsense. But it's still mostly a faith-based belief, of course.
Does this mean ancient, secular Skepticism has evolved into science? Were the Skeptics Socratic?
Just asking.

@Storm1752 By scrolling down just barely at all, you should discover the legend: "TAKE THREE" indicating the third version of my post.

The systematic doubt of modern science does owe more to Socrates than to the Skeptics. The view of science that I express is that of Karl Popper and known as non justificationism, non verificationism or faliblism. Popper follows Socrates and Einstein in the quest for enlightenment by refutation, never certain, only less wrong. And the history of science, a history only of ongoing improvement of knowledge, but never final certainty, bears this out. Religion is typically infallibilisist, one way or another claiming Devine authority, while secular Justificationism or verificationism is the name coined by Popper for the idea that science can be certain or rest upon firm foundation, a view that Popper rejects. The truth is that the lack of perfect certainty doesn't really paralyze any sensible person in every day life. Our expectations are all provisional. And there is no call for undue anxiety. There won't be a pop quiz! Conjecture is all that we have. Only conjecture or theory even renders the world intelligible. And that is no tragedy or disaster.

Religious sophistry and distortion notwithstanding, evolution is indeed a theory, but well supported. The veracity of evolution is not controversial, merely controverted. There is indeed controversy over subtle problems and modifications that Creationists liars then like to exaggerate. And the debunkers are always having a field day with all such transparently stupid mendacity. As for saintly miracles, I doubt that any such claims would pass muster for standards of modern journalism, let alone impossible absolute certainty. And the bar for Vatican investigation never seems quites so high as that of rational science.

@AaronAgassi No, but the existence or non-existence of miracles is not an issue for believers. The Church merely "certifies" them and, coupled with already willing suspension of disbelief, they are assumed true.
Yes evolution is called a "theory" because of silly semantics, but is nevertheless established fact. Why then the cuteness?
And your distinction between Skeptics and Socrates seems a fine one, at best. They ask the same questions, and come up with the same answers.
If the Skeptics, on one hand, always leave the door open for doubt, so does Socrates, on the other. Both assume there are no firm answers.
While this may be true of the unanswerable "mysteries" of life, it may NOT be true of other as yet answered questions, and yet others for which we DO have the answers but insist on saying we don't. That is absurd stubbornness.
Besides, all this is beside-the-point sophistry, whether religious or secular.
Always well-grounded facts support a theory, which by definition is nevertheless still not "proven." But evolution IS proven, even with it's minor problems. But Karl Popper would leave it an open question anyway?
Of course the yet-to-be-cleared-up inconsistencies need to be addressed, but the central fact is evolution irrefutably explains how life developed and became more complex.
Moreover, evolution continues to adapt life to changing circumstances. Humans themselves continue to evolve. Were it not for misguided ethical issues, we'd have already accelerated the process even more than we are already.
That humans are doing so is in itself a proof of evolution. It's just it is a unique and unprecedented TYPE of same, so in fairness needs to be somehow regulated and channelled to prevent abuse.
Anyway, my point is, it is very easy to indulge in facile wordplay, but we do nobody favors by obscuring the truth beneath an avalanche of meaningless argumentation over definitions.
They're important, but only insofar they clarify, not confuse.
Things MUST be justified and verified, for instance. If you're going to agree with Popper, explain how science can "never be certain or rest on a firm foundation," which is ridiculous, in my opinion.
I think the more correct way to put it is, scientific knowledge--through skeptical refutation and justification, and exhaustive verification--advances incrementally.
Each FACT, once established, inevitably generates new questions and uncertainties at that level, and the process continues, always advancing basic knowledge built gradually on ever-new but always reliable foundations.

@Storm1752 As I understand it, the Skeptics advocated the suspension of all judgement. This sort of thing is typically intended to avoid disagreement. Socrates by contrast, cultivated opinion and disagreement. Popper, following Socrates and Einstein, did not believe in any well grounded facts, whatever that even means. Popper rejects the very notion of prior foundation or prior filtration of hypotheses in order to avoid mistakes. Popper calls the traditional idea of science building on successive firm foundation, verificationism, as in the notion of a corpus of verified knowledge, or justificationism as in the notion of justified science. But all of this is simply jumping the gun. Poperianism holds that all hypotheses begin in unfounded conjecture, only then subject to rational attack and defense according to Empirical evidence. This is why Popper is such a popular philosopher with scientists.

Buddha was a real person, his name Siddharta Gautama, he was famous for being the only person to achieve nirvana, now that may be debatable and .I am not a buddhist but he did exist contrary to orher made up goda

@Mofo1953 So the story goes. However, the Buddha don't write anything and there's no body. Is there proof of his existence?

@EdEarl yes to all your questions, which if you had done some basic research wouldn't be askimg. Read here: [en.m.wikipedia.org]

@Mofo1953 You might read more critically, "He is believed to have lived and taught mostly in the northeastern part of ancient India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE"...Wikipedia Neither this article nor any other I've read provides evidence that Buddha actually lived. AFAIK no archeological evidence has been uncovered, such as a palace where he lived as a child and young man.

Moreover, whether the stories are about an actual man or not is not important. Buddhist philosophy is superb.

@EdEarl i do, that's not all i have read. Wikipedia is not the main source of my knowlege on the Buddah, and remember, Wikipedia is an open forum, besides I've been to his birthplace in Nepal, the Kapilvastu Districtl and also where he died, Kushinagar, India. There are many ancient documents there written in sanscrit according to the museums that prove the lineage.

@Mofo1953 Wikipedia is not my primary source either, but I'm not an expert. I realize there a number of places that claim the Buddha was there, but have not seen decisive evidence. Until then, I remain a skeptic. Besides, it really does not matter if one man lived, who was Buddha, or story tellers evolved the philosophy and character. The result matters, Buddhism and billions who try to live as good Buddhists, including myself.

sequitur? I will, admit, a handy example of what garners response.

@EdEarl not an expert either, not a buddhist either, but a well read and inquisitive traveler perhaps.

@EdEarl ummm, try Googling him?

@EdEarl. The word ‘believed’ in this context refers geographically not ontologically. Here is an opportunity for you to learn something new.

@AaronAgassi Getting responses was not my intent; in fact, I regret mentioning my hypothesis about Buddha possibly being a myth. I did not expect this much controversy.

@AaronAgassi, @AnneWimsey I have Googled Buddha; although, not recently. If there is archeological evidence, please provide a link.

@AaronAgassi, @AnneWimsey, @Geoffrey51 The Wiki quote is ambiguous about belief being geographic, temporal or existential, possibly because the evidence is not conclusive.

Wikipedia also says, "Scholars are hesitant to make unqualified claims about the historical facts of the Buddha's life. Most people accept that the Buddha lived, taught, and founded a monastic order during the Mahajanapada era during the reign of Bimbisara (c. 558 – c. 491 BCE, or c. 400 BCE)," This statement supports my contention that evidence does not exist. Otherwise, scholars scholars would be more certain.

@EdEarl that’’s all part of the fun Ed! really busy debate is far more interesting than acquiescence and tacit approval

@Geoffrey51 True, but religion is a hot topic. I don't want a flame war. Personally, Buddhism is a philosophy, not a religion, but for many it is.

@EdEarl agreed. There is much dispute about that, but it does have many of the aspects of religion such as doctrine, narrative, text, iconology, emotion, ethics, institution.

What it doesn’t have is an overarching god which is not necessary for religion.

@Geoffrey51 True. Though, it seems to me that some worship Buddha as if he was a god.

@EdEarl That may seem to be the case in Mahayana Buddhism as there are several gods but they are a later adaptation of Theravada.

Too complicated to go into here but can snider the different aspects of Buddhism you will see how the different ways developed.

Therevada Buddhism is closest to the ideas that Siddhārtha Gautama taught.

@EdEarl i read that they have questions about the minutia of his life, like where he was when....this sentence in no way disputes whether or not he actually lived, in fact it strongly supportsit!

@AnneWimsey People believe many things, both without evidence, and contrary to evidence. For, example, some believe the Earth is flat, some believe Trump is a good president, some believe Man did not set foot on the Moon, and the list goes on. I'm a skeptic until there is reasonable evidence.

Did the Bhudia place the burden of evidence upon the positive?

@AaronAgassi Obviously neither of us knows what the Buddha thought; not only is he long dead, but he didn't write anything. Thus, we have writing of his followers produced more than a generation after his death or after the death of storytellers who created his myth. Since verbal stories change over time, especially as stories migrate from one storyteller to storyteller.

As a philosopher, the Buddha tried to persuade people to think for themselves rather than accept the word of another.

I don't understand your question; thus, my reply m be irrelevant. In a court, the burden of proof is on the prosecutor. "Burden of evidence upon the positive," needs clarification.

@EdEarl Have you been following this thread?

@AaronAgassi By my count, there are 91 comments and replies. My comment was fourth, and fifteen have followed, with eighty-some replies. If you have read all of them, you read faster than I, since I'm dyslexic. Moreover, there is no rule that says I must read every one.

Why did you ask a question when you know the answer? I think I know; you wanted to shame me into reading all. No thanks. I was trying to answer your question, but again, there is no rule that says I must.

@EdEarl If you don't want to read then why do you want to reply?

@AaronAgassi Perhaps our mindsets are so far apart that I can't understand you. I read your original post, and reread it. I've not read everything in this thread. When you asked if I'd read the thread, I assumed you meant the OP, all comments, and all replies, in order to find an obscure explanation of, "The burden of evidence upon the positive." Maybe you assumed that I didn't read the OP, not true, and were coaxing me to read it. Whatever the reason, we are not communicating well.

At this point, I regret making a comment in this thread; it has been stressful, and I don't need stress.

...fin...