I want to make a few points, here, in response to the diaries below. If, after reading this, anyone is curious as to what I’m more specifically talking about, click here.

1. There’s a reason circumstantial evidence is not welcome in trials. It’s that circumstantial evidence alone can point you all kinds of places that may or may not actually exist. Especially when one mixes in presuppositions about motives, malice, methods and madness of parties in a case.

2. I firmly believe in the maxim “don’t rush to conclusions.” With any developing story, one wants to wait until the facts are not only in, but are clearly distinguishable from opinion, rumor, and presupposition. This is especially true when involving the quantum intricacies of a science as complex and nuanced as biology.

3. There are many kinds of logic, replete with many kinds of fallacies. God is love, love is blind, Stevie Wonder is blind, so Stevie Wonder is god presents several of them at once. But those fallacies are deceptive once you are lost in them – which is all the more reason that numbers 1 and 2 above are so important. If you run to a conclusion, its an easy thing to build the path behind you and create an entirely self-consistent argument.

Ibn al-Haytham said that “truth is sought for its own sake.” If we live under that maxim, our conclusions should be handed out sparingly – even minimalistically. That will, ultimately, make them more valuable in the long run.