At 10:53:04 AM on Saturday, July 10, 2004,
enlil@... wrote:
> Brian:
>> This tautology doesn't change the fact that it's a
>> methodological error to refuse a priori to reconstruct
>> something simply because it's rare.
> It's certainly a logical error when one does.
When one does what? Reconstructs something rare, or refuses
a priori to do so?
> Statistics is an all-pervasive thing, not isolated just to
> mathematics but to everyday life in general.
More precisely, statistical reasoning is applicable
everywhere. ('Statistics' properly refers to a branch of
mathematics or to sets of data.) My objection was that you
were applying it incorrectly.
[...]
> You fail to understand this somehow and want to make an
> us-you confrontation out of this,
No. First, I'd have made the same objection had anyone else
made the statement of yours that I quote below. Secondly, I
see nothing particularly confrontational in pointing out an
apparent error, particularly one lying at the heart of the
discussion.
> claiming that I "refuse a priori" to reconstruct a rarity.
In message 33435 you made the following flat statement:
If it's not abundant or even statistically relevant,
there's no point reconstructing it for IE.
That's all; there were no qualifying statements. That, by
any normal reading, is an a priori refusal to reconstruct a
rare phenomenon.
> No, my strategy is to _avoid_ anything rarer **until**
> there is a reason to do so. Slightly different.
I am aware of the difference. Indeed, that's why I objected
in the first place; did you not notice that this strategy
that you now claim to follow is the one that I was
advocating right along? Had you really been interested in
avoiding unnecessary confrontation, you could simply have
responded to my original correction with 'That's what I
actually meant' or words to that effect.
Brian