At 10:49 AM 8/17/97 +0000, you wrote: >Andy Kunz wrote: > >> Also, I happen to believe that nuclear armaments are a wonderful lifesaver >> due to the fact that they have prevented major war for the past 50 years. > > How can you say such irrational things? > > You cannot PROVE a NEGATIVE argument. > > If I take an aspirin and my headache goes away, the observation of > relief does not prove a relationship. You would need to conduct > double blind experiments to establish a statistical probability of > a causal link. > > It is not a 'fact' that the possession of nuclear arms by various > countries has prevented a major war. It is a fact that various > countries possess nuclear arms. It is a fact that no major war > has occured. You cannot demonstrate a relationship between these. > > If you wish to hold, as an article of faith, that there is a > relationship, then that is fine. But your original statement is > untenable. > While it is true that it would be near to impossible to PROVE that nuclear weapons prevented WW III, I think that a very strong case can be made that they did. After all, isn't this how ALL historical argumentation must be done, since historical experimentation can't be done and rarely does an event get repeated in history under the same conditions, or especially under conditions which allow it to be a "double blind" test. For instance, if a man runs into a bank with a gun and threatens to rob it, and I take out a gun and show him that I have it, and he then runs out of the bank, MOST people would agree that he probably ran out when he saw that I had comparable armament and that he was taking a much more substantial risk than if he were challenging an unarmed group of people. Yet, according to your argument, I should not assume that he ran out because I pulled the gun. No, I can't prove that he did, it is just the best explanation that anyone can come up with for why he left. Sean