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A comment on Alan Turing's 'Morphogenesis' Theory Confirmed 60 Years After His Death. Parent comment

Re:Alan Turing's 'Morphogenesis' Theory Confirmed 60 Years A... by baddox on Sunday March 23, 2014 @12:41AM (#7452158)
How could that be a "simple mistake"? Either the commenter has read the book, in which case such a lapse in memory is inexcusable in the face of such a strong statement of the book's contents, or the commenter has not read the book or even quickly searched its contents, in which case the lie is the result of deliberate ignorance.

If I claimed that the Lord of the Rings trilogy does not contain a character named "Frodo," would you call that a deliberate lie or a simple mistake?

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Re:Alan Turing's 'Morphogenesis' Theory Confirmed 60 Years A... by nl on Sunday March 23, 2014 @07:18AM (#7452921)
If I claimed that the Lord of the Rings trilogy does not contain a character named "Frodo," would you call that a deliberate lie or a simple mistake?

I'd call it neither.

You'd be wrong, but maybe you were confusing the name, or maybe the book, or maybe it's spelt differently in a different language. Maybe you read it long ago and forgot. Maybe you read a printing done by a little known cult that censored all referenced to hobbits. I have no idea why, but there are an infinite field of possibilities and only some require bad faith.

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Re:Alan Turing's 'Morphogenesis' Theory Confirmed 60 Years A... by baddox on Sunday March 23, 2014 @04:00PM (#7454844)
Or maybe your cat skipped across the keyboard and just happened to type out those exact characters and submit the comment. Fair enough. However, when I read a comment, I tend to infer that it was made intentionally by a human, and that the human intends to claim that the contents of the comment are correct.
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Re:Alan Turing's 'Morphogenesis' Theory Confirmed 60 Years A... by nl on Sunday March 23, 2014 @08:55PM (#7456038)
the human intends to claim that the contents of the comment are correct

Sure. But I think it is inadvisable to claim to know the reasons or motive behind the comment, and doubly so to claim they are acting in bad faith.

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