🚀 go-pugleaf

Jeffrey Siegal (jbs@quiotix.com) wrote:
: Merlin Dorfman wrote:
: >      And what argument is that?  I said that it was a recollection
: > based on education and experience, but I could not substantiate it
: > in the short term, and might or might not be able to subsantiate
: > it in the long term.

: You said that later, after you were challenged.  There is nothing wrong
: with making such a statement, if clearly labeled as a vague recollection
: or opinion.  Your original claim, however, was instead presented as a
: definite statement, with the appearance of being either supported fact
: or a valid scientific conclusion.  Given your admitted lack of evidence,
: it is neither.

     I have a terrible confession to make.
     Not everything I say on Usenet (or elsewhere) can be
immediately backed up by conclusive evidence.
     I frequently say things backed up by recollection that I
can't substantiate, by inference, by extenstion or 
extrapolation, etc.
     My memory is pretty good, and most of my recollections,
inferences, etc., are correct, and I can often find the
substantiation if requested.  If I can't, I'm happy to admit it,
and if I find evidence to the contrary I will also admit that.
In this case I was able to find neither.
...

: Sometimes people make these arguments because they don't realize they
: have no supporting evidence, and that's just an honest error.  However,
: since you admit that you have no evidence, making such an argument is
: also insincere.  This insincerity or attempt to "pass off" an invalid
: argument as a valid one are well within the concept of "bogus" or
: "sham."

     An argument of the form, "It is true because I say it is"
would fall under this category.  An argument of the form, "I
believe it is true, but up to now have not been able to find
anything to prove or disprove it" does not.

: You could, of course, render all of this moot by providing some real
: evidence that a common handgun bullet is likely (or even remotely
: likely) to cause explosive decompression of (or even anything other than
: a small hole in) an aircraft.  

: Meanwhile, pro-gun advocates are busy collecting evidence, in the form
: of allegedly expert testimony that this is not the case (although, to be
: fair, I wouldn't consider such a biased source to be all that
: credible).  See
: https://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=2474

     I don't have a problem with gun advocates presenting evidence
on this issue; that doesn't make it automatically false any more
than evidence on the opposite side would be invalidated because it
was from groups that believe in gun control.  However I don't find
anything really convincing; I would like to see something by a
designer rather than a mechanic or technician, and/or by somebody
who has actual experience with the situation, which, again, is 
not structural damage or "shooting down" an airplane--a bullet is
very unlikely to do that--it is that the skin of a pressurized
airliner at high altitude is brittle, highly stressed, and may be
fatigued.  The question is whether a small penetration of this 
skin could lead to a large tear.