Truth, strike two

[ciphergoth]

Thanks for some interesting and surprising responses to the JFK question. At the risk of creating more heat than light, let me try another example, one that I think might be a little less comfortable to be neutral about.

It seems that many people believe that on the morning of September 11, 2001, four thousand or more Israelis who were working at the World Trade Center did not show up for work.

Are those people wrong?

(Update: amended as per ajva's caveat)

Comments

[djm4]

Re (2), I think they all mean the same thing.

Sorry? You think 'you're definitely wrong', 'I disagree' and 'that seems unlikely because...' all mean the same thing?

Just double-checking because (a) that explains a lot and (b) I don't think they all mean the same thing, but if you've been hearing 'you're definitely wrong' when I've said 'I disagree', I'm going to have to express myself very differently in future to avoid confusion.

For the record, I see the distinction (and use the phrases) roughly as follows:

'You're definitely wrong': you've got your facts wrong, as I understand them. For example 'you're definitely wrong that that bird we both saw was a Linnet, it was a Meadow Pipit', or 'you're definitely wrong that the square root of two is a rational number'.

'I disagree': I believe you're wrong, and I'm confident enough to say so, but this may not be on a matter of fact, nor one on which I'm sure of my facts - it can be a balance of probabilities thing. It can also be one where it's a difference in point of view, often where there's contradictory evidence, or an axiomatic principle. For example: 'I disagree that obesity is the health risk it's popularly supposed to be' or 'I disagree that it's better to be safe than to be free'.

'That seems unlikely because...': I agree that I'll sometimes use that wording as a form of ... litotes? ... where I basically mean 'If you believe that you're batshit insane'. But I'll also use it where I'm aware that the other person could be correct, but only under conditions I think are unlikely. For example 'It seems unlikely that your processor has fried, because most errors of that sort are caused by duff memory' or 'It seems unlikely that Liverpool will win the league, because Man U would have to lose all their remaining matches, and they're on a winning streak at the moment'.