> You can't prove a negative scientifically. Oops.
Actually, you can prove a negative. For example, I can state that
there are no large, visible pink elephants in the room with me right
now, and you and others can come and look; and if you do, you and the
others will not see any large, visible pink elephants.
(Of course, you will not be able to see the invisible, tiny pink
elephant that I can see in my mind's eye; but I am not talking about
him.)
I suspect what you are trying to say is that you cannot prove a
universal negative, such as there are no pink elephants, not even
those that have been painted pink.
The latter problem occurs because the universe is bigger than the
volume you and others can investigate, so you don't know whether a
counter example could occur. But for a constrained space, such as my
room, it is possible to determine whether a large, visible entity
inhabits it.
And for an unconstrained search space, depending on your confidence
regarding the `usualness' or `unusualness' of the part you have
searched, you can make a statement that may not be absolute, but is
strong enough to bet your life on, such as `it is highly unlikely
there are any naturally green elephants, although there may be albino
elephants that look pinkish because their blood is somewhat visible.'
--
Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises
http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.teak.cc [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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