|
|
Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote, in reply to quasi:
Or as it says in Proverbs 26:4-5
Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you will be like him yourself.
Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes.
This, by the way, is exactly the way to strike the balance. Respond to
the content of the fool's posts, without dragging the discussion down to
the fool's low level.
But it does amaze me the extent to which people try to maintain logical
discussions with some of these people. Let me try a poor attempt at
parody:
A: I think that all mathematicians are completely wrong, and 1+1=1/2.
B: No, let me explain .... [fill in proof from Peano's axioms]
A: You are trying to surpress the truth, I will call the media to
inform the public of the deception of mathematicians who only want to
protect their jobs.
[snip]
B: (By now losing his patience.) You are being deliberately obtuse.
Don't you recognise logic?
A: Now you are resorting to name calling. This just shows how weak
your arguments are.
LOL! That reads very much like a transcript of certain threads by
grandiose net.cranks I have seen. I usually put the cranks into my kill
file as rapidly as they change their email addresses, but I like to read
the replies to the cranks because reading serious mathematicians
explaining errors of logic is educational.
--
Karl M. Bunday P.O. Box 1456, Minnetonka MN 55345
Learn in Freedom (TM) http://learninfreedom.org/
remove ".de" to email
|
|