(February 6, 2014 at 1:42 am)BrokenQuill92 Wrote: I thought facts get to decide when someone is lying
That's kind of my point, and the crux of my question: the person who gets to decide if someone is lying is the person who discovers that the statements of the liar not only go against facts or evidence, but that the liar also knew of such facts and evidence and didn't disclose them or active sought to suppress them so they could perpetuate their lie as truth.
For instance, the person who created the Piltdown Man skull was intentionally perpetrating a lie by suppressing the fact that the skull was a forgery.
The person who discovered the skull was not perpetrating a lie because they were not aware that the skull was not a genuine fossil; in other words, they were not aware of the relevant fact that the skull was a forgery and omission of that fact by the discoverer doesn't necessarily constitute a lie on the part of the discoverer (unless it is shown that the discoverer had prior knowledge that the skull was a forgery, thus they would the be considered an accomplice to the liar).
The people who discovered that the Piltdown Man skull was a hoax were the only people who could expose the skull as a forgery precisely because they found evidence that the skull was a forgery.
Seeing as how the thread is going in a different direction from my OP I'll conclude that I don't think my reasoning is circular and let the thread drift with the wind of conversation from here.
Teenaged X-Files obsession + Bermuda Triangle episode + Self-led school research project = Atheist.
