There's a mode of inference that has become so popular in certain quarters that I decided it was time to fashion a suitable name for it. It goes a bit like this:


I know some scholars will quibble that it should be called “modus dolendo dolens” or something, but let's not be petty.

Jon Awbrey

What does this mean?

If A has a value different from nothing then event B occurs. Then the opposite of event B occurs?

Since A only has to exist, and it always exists as a value, then B and its opposite always occur?

No. It was Mickey Dolenz (born Modus Dolendo Dolens, Jr., March 8, 1945), who was petty. Or at least, small. Some {{citation needed}} suggested that Modus should have retained his original first name, which was hip, but he said famously that he wanted to monkey with this first name, nobody should criticize. His bandmates agreed, saying that they were were too busy singing to put anybody down.

I knew that someone else here would be Ancient Of Daze Enuff to abdeuce the Monkees as their first e-lusion, and I'm trying to get back to the task of x-planation, but I've just been e-lected Speaker for the Moral And/Or Silent Mojority, and I'm busy preparing my moral and/or silent address to the House of Pearls Before Swine (PBS).

Jon

We might as well shut the website down now...I can't see how it can get better than this.

It means that if we can prove that:
* if A is true then B must be true
* B is false

then logically A must be false, yet some people persist in saying that A must be true.

For example, if John Smith lives in Des Moines, it follows that he lives in the USA. If we can prove that he doesn't live in the USA, he can't live in Des Moines. Yet there may be people who insist he does, maybe invoking WP:NOR.

I've seen people invoke WP:SYN as well. That Wikipedia has firm policies against both independent but verifiable research, and logical synthesis is appalling. I understand the policy is to only use reliable sources to prevent cranks from interring their own Time Cube sort of cranky theories deep in the fertile loam of Wikipedia, but it removes logical discourse as an option.

In Wikiworld, encyclopedia authors are not expected to think, they merely inhale the ideas of others and regurgitate them in slightly modified form and order. And this is considered good, in fact ideal, because it prevents knowledge from being accidentally created. Only authorized knowledge creators should be allowed to create knowledge, you know.