From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@calweb.com)
Date: Sat Mar 15 1997 - 16:22:32 MST
> Illogical. I think it has been a waste of my time communicating with you.
> I am sorry spending so much time working on this. It is a lesson for me, to
> let other people alone, especially if they appear to have already made up
> their minds, because, in that case, logic and written documentation is not
> enough.
No! No! Don't do that. You're forgetting about us lurkers, and making
the same mistake as some of those who argued against my earlier thread
on the value of rudeness: you are assuming that the purpose of argument
is to sway one's opponent. That may be one goal of some arguments, but
the /purpose/ of argument is to clarify the truth for one's own benefit,
and in a public forum like this, for everyone's.
Your opponents initial claims were interesting, and I might have been
inclined to investigate them. Though I generally felt that Duesberg
was a quack, I was not unwilling to listen to argument otherwise. Your
wonderful job of exposing the case for what it is, and his subsequent
obvious evasion, clarify the issue for me greatly. Evasion is easy to
recognize when you see it, but crackpots won't resort to it until
someone brings up enough facts to push them to it.
Your argument has not failed; it has succeeded brilliantly, just not
in the mind of your opponent. But who cares about him?
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