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2007-05-14

Carousing Drunken Yak Merchants

Even if one could know for sure that a text was the very words of the Buddha, it could be total nonsense. And if one could know for sure that a text was written 1000 years after the Buddha died by a gang of carousing drunken yak merchants, it might still make a great deal of sense. In short, we must always be wary of the genetic fallacy, that is, the fallacious view that one can know whether a statement is true if one can figure out who said it.

-- Richard Hayes

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