Baseless accusations

Often times we hear people defend themselves from "baseless accusations."

In a recent post in her column, Ms Patricia Evangelista claimed that based on her assumptions "the men who put together the CEP are, scientifically speaking, idiots."

To claim that other people are idiots supposedly based on science, where is the "scientific" proof? Assumptions are just assumptions. Hypotheses, they were called during my elementary and high school days. To be scientific, a hypothesis must be proved or disproved using scientific methods. Where is the method here to prove that?

I do not have any scientific proof, but I do have various references.

According to wikipedia, idiot means (1) person lacking professional skill, (2) a private citizen, and (3) individual based on the Greek word idiotes. A modern day meaning is uneducated or ignorant person from a 1300 French word idiote.

In dictionary.com idiot means (1) an utterly foolish or senseless person and (2) in Psychology, a person of the lowest order in a former classification of mental retardation, having a mental age of less than three years old and an intelligence quotient under 25.

I'm afraid I do not have enough time to look for a scientific study on idiots. Based, however, on what I have gathered from the ethernet, the "men who put together CEP" cannot be described as idiots. Here are the reasons why:

1. As opposed to the wikipedia definition, the "men" are professionals, working in the public sector, and are part of a group (ergo men - plural).

2. In contrast with the French word idiote, if those "men" are idiots, how could those "men" have finished their college and post graduate courses? And if they are ignorant, how could they have seen the need for the education sector to find a solution to put to scale all successful pilot project of the government and its partners?

3. And finally for the dictionary.com definition: these "men" are not senseless for they see the need to give poor children from far-flung schools a chance to learn from among the internationally recognized teachers of the country; and these men could not have the mental age of three because if they did, they will be talking about three year old stuff like bunnies and ponies and airplanes and candy.

When I was three, I began gathering an army of toy soldiers and vehicles and was on my way to planning world domination and intergalactic conquest.