“Disproving a claim that something exists is often quite difficult, and this difficulty is often mistaken for evidence that the claim is true…Presented as I am periodically with these and other fantastical claims, I sometimes feel a little like a formally dressed teetotaler at a drunken orgy for reiterating that not being able to conclusively refute the claims does not constitute evidence for them.”

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 3, “Pseudoscience” (pp. 95-96; ellipsis represents elision of new age examples)

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American mathematician 1945

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