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Comment by daimyoyo | Hacker News Reader

A century ago, we didn't realize that radiation is lethal. They didn't arrest him for making science, they arrested him for having dangerous materials without the proper safety equipment.

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Right, I am usually very anti-regulations for most all things. But there are some things that are so obviously a public safety issue that regulation is a no brainier. But it does beg the question, should their be a safe outlet for people like this to pursue their intellectual curiosity without having to pay 100k to a university.

Not trying to be a dick, but I thought you'd want to know http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

This is such a pressing concern that someone registered a domain for it: http://begthequestion.info/

It's more helpful just to say

  s/begs the question/raises the question/

In most cases, that's what is really meant.

Thanks for the info on it, it is a common colloquialism in my region, the US south east. I was using it, in what is described as the modern usage in the link that was provided in one of the other posts. I did not know that it was used as a term to describe a logical fallacy. It's usage in my region could be inferred to mean: It is an important question that should be asked and not that it assets that the sentence to follow is true.

It could be argued that that 100K is the price tag associated with the centuries of learning accumulated; i.e. that is simply what it costs to have yourself suitably trained and prepared to safely pursue your intellectual curiosity, and therefore an unavoidable expense (unless you don't mind moving to e.g. North Korea).

What dangerous materials? They checked the apartment and did not find significant levels of radiation.

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