| Gnac said: ...And yet another thread "devolves" into arguing about semantics |
So many arguments do because an agreement on the definition of terms is fundamental to the resolution of any argument. It's a necessary evil.
If the OP really wants proof in the literal sense, then I think we ought to explain to him that he's never going to get it. If he just wanted evidence... well... I would think that there was plenty enough of that around to satisfy anybody willing to be swayed by it.
And I think it's an important point to understand that science doesn't actually deal in proof. Any knowledge past "I think therefore I am" comes with some level of uncertainty, and as Runa216 points out, at some point you have to be satisfied that something is true despite that little bit of uncertainty.
People naturally want truth to be an absolute, but the universe is never that simple. I think it's important for us to accept the complexity and uncertainty while we forge past it.
In a similar topic on another forum, somebody linked this awesome piece by Isaac Asimov:
http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
"The worst part about these reviews is they are [subjective]--and their scores often depend on how drunk you got the media at a Street Fighter event." — Mona Hamilton, Capcom Senior VP of Marketing
*Image indefinitely borrowed from BrainBoxLtd without his consent.
