Re: Comet impact in the Eastern United States - Feasibility of Evacuation

On Thu, 13 Mar 2008 16:29:07 +0100, Matthias Warkus
<Warkus@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>Joel Olson schrieb:
>> Hempel's paradox of confirmation goes as follows:
>> 
>> 1. The statement that all crows are black is equivalent to the
>> statement that all non-black things are non-crows.
>> 
>> 2. The statement that all non-black things are non-crows is
>> sup****ted by the observation of a non-black non-crow.
>> 
>> therefore
>> 
>> 3. The statement that all crows are black is sup****ted by the
>> observation of a white shoe.
>
>How is that a paradox? It's perfectly logical, if perfectly impractical, 
>because it plays on a lack of distinction between an observation 
>sup****ting a statement and an observation not contradicting a statement.

But consider that if you could in fact examine all non-black objects
in the universe of discourse, and you did so and found them all to be
non-crows, the truth of the original statement would be proven.

-- 
Bill Snyder  [This space unintentionally left blank]