Random Musings ...

[Milos]

Let me give an example. I was about 12 years old. At school, my math teacher Mrs. H. made some statement (don't quite remember what it was, doesn't matter, at least it was relevant for the class) which I *knew* was logically wrong. I discussed with her and gave my view. She denied it and insisted on her arguments. The whole class were on her side, simply due to the fact that I was kind of a class winner at that time, and everybody was thrilled when it turned out once that I could be proven wrong, even if most of them either had no clue, or were not sure about it. Since I was unable to convince the teacher and everyone else I needed help. I discussed the problem with my father. He helped me by writing down the facts and explained his reasoning using a purely logical approach. Next day I showed the paper to Mrs. H.

It turned out I was correct. She apologized to me. I don't quite remember the reaction of my classmates, at least I think they were quite surprised.

Your analogy is not quite correct. Better analogy to current case is a 12 year old kid in a classroom full of university professors of particles physics trying to convince them that his theory about Higgs boson is correct.

[Albert Silver]

My personal comments:

1- Decisions can be taken without evidence or they can also be taken disregarding evidence. As long as we know what we are doing, those are valid options.

2- In case of "moral" decisions, they are based on personal values but they are different and have different weight than decisions based on friendship.
Friendship tends to cloud things, job interviews are an example.

3- Evidence can be technical or based on experience, this explains the value of "evidence" in your classroom example.

We can use your example in our situation, we the regular "classmates" expect you the "teachers" to provide us with a technically valid assessment. Most of us will follow that, however there will be some who will ignore it and go by friendship.

If you are referring to the IPPO-Rybka deal, then there is no consensus on what the "technically valid assessment" is. It all depends on which experts you are listening to. Even BB, the author of the report that discusses in what way Rybka and IPPO differ (it says nothing about how they resemble each other - but he says this was deliberate), states that he would have no problem accepting that IPPO was built from a base of reverse-engineered Rybka code. In other words, he has no certainty either.

[Gino Figlio]

I agree with what you wrote but my reaction is different than yours.
I don't trust people based on friendship. I am not saying this is a better stance but it makes more sense to me and if I ever had to be a judge of any of the conflicts regarding these issues, I would make a decision based on the lack of consensus.

[Albert Silver]

I agree with what you wrote but my reaction is different than yours.
I don't trust people based on friendship. I am not saying this is a better stance but it makes more sense to me and if I ever had to be a judge of any of the conflicts regarding these issues, I would make a decision based on the lack of consensus.

I understand you feel my view is tainted, but I took more than plain friendship into consideration. I took into consideration the Strelka affair when it too came in much the same manner, considered a strange hodge-podge of Rybka code with other bits tossed into the mix. Then too, Vas made the same claim, and then too he did not actually provide any code. What broke the doubts was the actual author of Strelka coming forward, and admitting what he had done and how. I am not saying this means this is proof of the current situation, but it does speak in his favor.