5 ms·
It's my understanding that it was traced definitively to Taylor Farms, but the only positive test may have been a false positive. You don't always get a positi
by mlyle 2mo ago
It's my understanding that it was traced definitively to Taylor Farms, but the only positive test may have been a false positive.
You don't always get a positive test, but this doesn't necessarily prevent you from concluding the cause of food contamination.
- stogot 2mo ago[flagged]
- Terr_ 2mo ago> So it’s a false positive? They already told you clearly, so it sounds like you're trying to browbeat them with a fallacy of equivocation over the scope of "it". These things are not equivalent: 1. A biological test for a parasite in a sample of equipment/material from the factory. (Claimed as false-positive.) 2. The analysis of the supply-chain for the food that sickened people which led to that facility as a common factor. (Presumably still accurate.) ___________ To use a criminal-investigation metaphor: Suppose a dead woman is found covered in knife wounds, and the circumstantial evidence leads to one Knifey McStabberson, since he (A) previously dated the woman and (B) sent a death-threat once via text-message, and (C) has a collection of hundreds of suitably-sized knives. Investigators notice one that looks bloody, and test it... It's her blood! Wait, oops, no, false-positive, it was something else. What is your takeaway from the story so far? Is it that Knifey McStabberson himself is "a false-positive" and obviously totally innocent... or is it that it would be a good idea to check more of the knives scattered around his house and in his car?
- roughly 2mo agoChrist, man, hasn’t the McStabberson family been through enough? Do you not have the decency to finally bring this witch hunt to an end?!
- Terr_ 2mo agoMeh, I don't see how I could make anything worse, with how they were featured in Leave it to Cleaver, and recently dissed in that song by the Full-Tang Clan.
- pudgywalsh 2mo ago> but the only positive test may have been a false positive Software getting flagged by anti-malware as a false positive is a great way to get an evil corpo tale of woe to the top of HN with 800 points.
- dredmorbius 2mo agoMultiple chains of evidence may be used to support a conclusion. One conclusive chain is sufficient, even if others are equivocal. You're focusing on the weakest part of the argument, which HN guidelines explicitly request you not do: <https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>. (Less so if others are exculpatory. Which is not the case here. A known false positive is not conclusive proof, but neither does it explicitly clear a source.) See for more explanation: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49044401 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49044401>.