Linked by Phoenixfire159 on Wed 6th Dec 2006 02:39 UTC
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Member since:
2006-06-21
I second that. "Reductio ad absurdum" doesn't even mean what he thinks it means. It means contradicting a hypotesis (on purpose, even if you know it's absurd to do so), in order to show that the inverted alternative would be impossible and therefore the original hypotesis must be correct. It's a mathematical problem-solving method which can help when you have enough data to contradict the negated problem but not enough to prove the normal problem.
He thought it means to contradict yourself, which it doesn't.
Edited 2006-12-06 16:07