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Cecil Moore

wrote:
Cecil Moore wrote:
Nobody, including you and me, can prove that he is
not a rapist. It's simply a fact of logic.

Cecil, are you a rapist?

In general, no one can prove that he is not guilty. The
point of logic is: In general, negative assertions cannot
be proved. That's why, in this country, a person is presumed
innocent until he is proved guilty. An alibi proves a
*positive* assertion, i.e. that one was physically somewhere
else at the time of the crime.

Imagine the problem presented to the women accused of being
witches during the Salem witch trials. They were required to
prove that they were not witches. They were presumed guilty
until proved innocent which was a logical impossibility.

This characteristic of logic carries over into conditional
statements. If the 'if' portion of an 'if/then' conditional
logic statement is false, then the entire statement is true
by definition. The following is a true statement.

"If the moon were made out of green cheese, then a cow could
indeed jump over it."
--
73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com