RE: [xml-dev] xml schema

[Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@metalab.unc.edu>]

At 8:36 PM -0700 8/31/02, Dare Obasanjo wrote:
>In my personal opinion, an article that advises against using complex
>types in W3C XML Schema cannot claim to be without bias.

In other words, no matter how the conclusion was reached, no matter 
how much evidence he presents to support his point, no matter what 
his preconceptions might have been, no matter whether he had a 
personal interest in seeing the exact opposite conclusion, the mere 
result of his investigation is evidence of bias.

This is ridiculous, and an unfortunately a far too common evidentiary 
fallacy, especially on the Internet. I hear it all the time, 
especially from Microsoft and Java partisans, and I've learned that 
all an accusation of bias really means is that the correspondent 
can't justify their own position on the basis of evidence so they 
call me biased.

Just because someone disagrees with you does not mean they are 
biased. Just because someone is wrong does not mean they are biased. 
Bias is a very serious accusation. It deserves to be backed up with 
specific proof of both the cause and existence of the bias. Short of 
that, it's just argument by name calling.
-- 

+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
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|          XML in a  Nutshell, 2nd Edition (O'Reilly, 2002)          |
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|  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0596002920/cafeaulaitA/  |
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