- Pseudo-Scientific "Proof" That Will Only Appeal to Idiots -

Professor Marcello Truzzi coined the expression Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.  Carl Sagan popularized the slogan, a simplifying of the sentiment expressed by Hume and LaPlace in the 18th century: if you tell a tall tale, you need tall proof.

This slogan is familiar among skeptics who regularly challenge pseudo-scientific wackos to "put up or shut up."  If you want the claim to be taken seriously that a UFO landed in your back yard, you'd better have more than some kicked-up dirt to show for it.

The Truzzi axiom should also be familiar to Obama supporters.  If I were a pundit, I'd repeat it constantly: extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof - put up or shut up.  McCain's claim that Obama is closely associated with terrorists is supported by no more than the predictably ordinary evidence that Obama had a couple minor encounters with a shady character or two.  Nothing more compelling than standard political encounters due to simple geographic proximity.

But pseudoscientist McCain isn't done just yet.  Today he's attaching a "challenge" to his extraordinary claims: prove us wrong... prove Obama is not closely tied to radical terrorists.  Naturally, this challenge is as logically flawed as the basic claim itself, since you can't prove a negative.  It's Logic 101.

If I claimed somewhere on Earth there exists a unicorn, I'd be nuts to expect the rest of the world to prove me wrong.  But this is exactly what McCain's doing - instead of "proving" Obama's a radical, Muslim-sympathizing, terrorist-loving, Manchurian candidate, he's challenged Obama to prove otherwise.

But we shouldn't be too concerned this appeal to pseudologic will change the minds of many voters.  Like everything else about McCain/Palin's recent efforts, their "terrorist" claims and embracing of negative proof will only be blindly accepted by the most neanderthal of the neocon voter base.  You know, the same logically-challenged bunch of cretins who believes the Bible is wholly and literally true.

While most Americans probably don't know who Truzzi was, most understand the extraordinary maxim in their bones.  And most understand the absurdity of looking for negative proof.

McCain is in a nosedive, and I'm loving every minute of it.

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