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It feels great when I read something that, somehow, I always believed but could not exactly articulate. I know people that believe that, most of the time, the best way to respond to unreasonable or irrational petitions is to do it by means of answering the actual points made, even if completely unwarranted and time consuming. For instance, claims of some random paranormal effect should be put to the test with proper scientific investigation, like that would satisfy the claimant and not take us in a never-ending endeavour... Sometimes, the best way to answer the problem is to make use of well tested heuristics that, instead of going into the specific details, just make the elephant in room more evident: some problems are simply not well put, or some answers miss the point (e.g. the paranormal claim is pseudo-scientific therefore will never accept a negative result, whichever it may be; to feed the troll will not satiate the troll, etc). |