Jay JG:
> "Deductive reasoning" becomes
> original research when it is used to build a case against a position
> presented in an article, not when used to do unit conversions. Now if
> you were to assert that based on genetics and "simple deductive
> reasoning" that uncles were more closely related to nephews than aunts
> were to nieces, that would be original research, and you'd have to
> find some source which supported it.
Ray Saintonge:
That's certainly an extremist view. It implies
that a crackpot theory
is acceptable as long as it has previously been published somewhere
else.
I was grateful for the clarification later given by Jay JG. Where I
differ, myself, is in not taking "idea" from the policy page to mean any
proposition, however concrete or factual, but to have some debatable general
or abstract content (e.g. the theory of relativity).
Charles