I think it's two separate things. Yes, it's good to observe precautions in order to protect ourselves from harm. We do it all the time, but we probably also tend to take risks as well. Being more cautious and vigilant can help us avoid harm.
But I think it's completely separate from assigning blame for a crime. "You could have avoided this" should never be part of the discussion when a crime has been committed. It doesn't take much to reduce the idea to absurdity. "If you hadn't gone out on a date that night, the drunk driver who killed your fiancee would not have slammed into the side of your car."
But I think it's completely separate from assigning blame for a crime. "You could have avoided this" should never be part of the discussion when a crime has been committed. It doesn't take much to reduce the idea to absurdity. "If you hadn't gone out on a date that night, the drunk driver who killed your fiancee would not have slammed into the side of your car."
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
