From: Charles Oliver Nutter <charles.nutter@...>
Date: 2009-04-06T05:17:14+09:00
Subject: Re: [Ann] Verify, a very basic testing tool.

Sean O'Halpin wrote:
> I agree with you that 'refute' doesn't seem right. Not wanting to get
> too pedantic about all this (but failing miserably :), from
> http://www.abdn.ac.uk/philosophy/guide/glossary.shtml:

Hey, this is exactly my kind of pedantry.

> "REFUTE To refute a proposition or theory is to establish  or prove
> that it is false. Lately many people have taken to using ‘refute’ as a
> synonym for ‘deny’, but avoid this usage in philosophy. To deny that
> God exists is not, in philosophical usage, to refute (or disprove) the
> proposition that God exists."
> 
> Generally 'I assert  P' means 'I am stating that proposition P is
> true' and 'I deny Q' means 'I am stating that proposition Q' is false,
> which would fit with your interpretation, i.e. if you deny Q and Q
> turns out to be false, then you are correct. However, you haven't
> proven anything. Your statement and reality just happen to be in
> agreement. To refute Q is to ~prove~ that Q is false. There is no
> further argument - Q is false and can only be false. I don't see how
> we can assert that simply because a test turns out to return a false
> value we have proven anything. We are simply getting assurance that
> our assertions and reality are in agreement. In short, if we are
> looking for a candidate to be the antonym of 'assert', 'deny' seems to
> fit the bill.
> 
> A further wrinkle:  'prove' itself has the somewhat archaic meaning of
> 'test'... as in 'the exception that proves the rule' :)

I think that's why I have trouble with it...refute says to me we're 
disproving something. So we'd be proving something doesn't work, proving 
something fails, providing something otherwise expected to be true is 
false. So I'd say that when an assertion fails, that failure 
successfully refutes the condition being asserted. But refutation being 
used as assertion seems wrong...we're trying to show a positive result: 
that some condition returns false or nil. We're not trying to disprove a 
condition, nor trying to prove a condition expected to be true is 
actually false. refute implies to me that there's a true expectation 
we're disproving, rather than an *expected* false/nil result we're 
trying to prove.

- Charlie