4 ms·

What's interesting to me is that neither of you provided sources for your claim. On what basis should I accept either of them? Not trying to be a jerk :) And

What's interesting to me is that neither of you provided sources for your claim. On what basis should I accept either of them? Not trying to be a jerk :) And I know not every statement deserves footnotes. Just thought it interesting that even in the case of refuting someone else's information it doesn't happen (often). :)

pfdietz 8y ago
You could do what I did, and look up "Abundance of elements in Earth's crust" in wikipedia. I sometimes don't provide the link if wikipedia is the source, since that will be the first place you look. Crustal abundance is interesting, especially when it diverges from chondritic abundances (which represent solar system averages of most elements except hydrogen and noble gases.)
dontbenebby 8y ago
>Not trying to be a jerk :) And I know not every statement deserves footnotes. Do you think these statements deserved footnotes? Did you attempt to verify the claim and find it difficult to find a corroborating source? Sources are good, but many people use "have a source for that" as DOS attack on civil discourse.
- allannienhuis 8y ago
  I think in the case of a rebuttal, particularly when the original statement didn't provide any source, it is a useful practice to provide some type of source - even if was a simple reference. eg 'wikipedia' or '1st result on google!'. Otherwise it's just a really uninteresting he-said-she-said back and forth, no? I really don't think every statement of fact needs references - this isn't scientific paper writing. But where someone is calling out something specific as incorrect, I think its often worth a little bit extra effort to avoid things degenerating into something not much more interesting than name calling. That said, neither of those folks owe me anything. :) I'm just happy I get to learn new things once in a while on HN.

pfdietz 8y ago

You could do what I did, and look up "Abundance of elements in Earth's crust" in wikipedia. I sometimes don't provide the link if wikipedia is the source, since that will be the first place you look. Crustal abundance is interesting, especially when it diverges from chondritic abundances (which represent solar system averages of most elements except hydrogen and noble gases.)

dontbenebby 8y ago

>Not trying to be a jerk :) And I know not every statement deserves footnotes. Do you think these statements deserved footnotes? Did you attempt to verify the claim and find it difficult to find a corroborating source? Sources are good, but many people use "have a source for that" as DOS attack on civil discourse.

allannienhuis 8y ago
I think in the case of a rebuttal, particularly when the original statement didn't provide any source, it is a useful practice to provide some type of source - even if was a simple reference. eg 'wikipedia' or '1st result on google!'. Otherwise it's just a really uninteresting he-said-she-said back and forth, no? I really don't think every statement of fact needs references - this isn't scientific paper writing. But where someone is calling out something specific as incorrect, I think its often worth a little bit extra effort to avoid things degenerating into something not much more interesting than name calling. That said, neither of those folks owe me anything. :) I'm just happy I get to learn new things once in a while on HN.