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Comment by worrycue | Hacker News Reader

> How would you deny the SC status?

Maybe we should adopt the stance that it’s not a SC by default and have the people asserting that it is prove that it’s a SC.

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I think this is functionally equivalent to the status quo?

Not on HN where it’s definitely a SC we just need more time for the miracle to happen, failed replication attempts be damned.

Or even better adopt no stance on truth value and rather adopt a stance on whether there is sufficient evidence to expend further effort.

No need to guess at the truth. Just remain agnostic until you know the truth.

Exactly. That's the only reasonable stance. Everything else is just jumping to conclusions, positive or negative.

Sometimes a decision has to be made though - e.g. is a particular person a murderer.

In most countries, the burden of proof is on the accuser and the accused doesn’t need to proven his or her innocence and is treated as innocent until proven otherwise.

Sure, but science isn't a murder trial, it is entirely evidence based. Show the evidence, if there is none we'll move on and if there is you get a Nobel (in the case of superconductivity at room temperature and ambient pressure).

We (the rest of the world) can't prove a negative, so it is up to the claimant to supply the proof. Given proof it will be believed, no proof then it's a no-op.

With the murder trial you can assume a-priori that there is a murderer, the question then is 'who', not if a murder is possible or not. These are entirely different problems for a logic perspective.

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