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Argumentum ad Shakespear

You cannot say that water has no memory / god does not exist / horoscopes are rubbish / whatever just like that... Remember what Shakespear said: “There are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”!

Well, I can. I so can. Because this argument is invalid...

I’m not saying Shakespear was wrong there. In his time it certainly nobody dreamt of quantum physics or black holes – and yet, they are there. But the problem appears when somebody tries to use this (or similar) quote not to broaden someone’s horizons, but to “prove” some nonsense.

How do you best say, why such “proof” sucks? With the fact that it might theoretically “prove” anything.

Here you go: the king of Cambodia keeps six hundred clones of Mother Theresa in his dungeons and makes them take care of poor orphans, all in order to take over for himself all the good karma that the clones produce. Sounds totally absurd, doesn’t it? It should, since I just came up with that, without any premise. But hey, “there are more things than are dreamt”, so open your damn mind!

“Proof”, that can confirm literally everything (including contradictory statements) is total crap. Please, don’t use it.


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