[oclug] Doug Miller

[smoynes at nexus.carleton.ca]

On Tue, Feb 06, 2001 at 07:31:30AM -0800, Francis Pinteric wrote:
> As for "redutio-ad-absurdum," that particular method of reasoning is
> perfectly vald, although I didn't claim to use any sort of logic at
> all in my description of these ... people. As you may recall, the
> method of reductio ad absurdum, in order to prove an assertion,
> assumes it's negation, and then, through successive steps in
> reasoning deduces that the assumption leads to a contradiction (an
> absurdity), thus proving the assertion. 

reductio ad abusurdum:
1 : disproof of a proposition by showing an absurdity to which it leads when carried to its logical conclusion
2 : the carrying of something to an absurd extreme

I think #2 applys more to your "theory".
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 240 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://tux.oclug.on.ca/pipermail/oclug/attachments/20010206/66fd50f0/attachment.bin