Re: unnatural languages

On 14 Mar 2007 20:28:44 -0700, "Peter T. Daniels"
<grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:1173929324.317738.63840@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
in sci.lang:

On Mar 14, 5:25 pm, hru...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Herman Rubin) wrote:

In article <1173823970.981242.310...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Peter T. Daniels <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Mar 13, 4:53 pm, hru...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Herman Rubin) wrote:

Few American college students speak reasonably grammatical
English, and their writing is not much better.

By now, you are either deliberately lying, or you are utterly
uneducable.

Possibly college students in language departments
students, and have read letters of application
by them.

Now you're growing simply incoherent. I have no idea what you just
tried to say.

I think that he lost a line or two after the first one. I
suspect that he was (1) granting the possibility that
college students in language departments speak and write
reasonably grammatical English, but (2) claiming that he
knew this not to be the case with students in mathematics
departments, on the basis of personal interaction and having
read letters of application by them.

[...]

When it comes to government, how many have
a clear idea of what even they would consider a good form?

Was that supposed to be interpretable?

Yes.

Well, it isn't.

My interpretation: 'How many people have a clear idea of
what they themselves mean by "a good form of government"?'

[...]

In statistics, they learn formulas, and apply them with
know idea of the limitations of the formulas, or the
desirability of using that formula in that situation.
If someone has some data, and just adds, subtracts,
multiplies, and divides almost at will, do you think
the result will be meaningful?

If the data are the prices of the goods in their
shopping cart, and they need to determine whether they
have enough cash in their wallet to pay for the goods
plus the sales tax, then absolutely yes. A vanishingly
small portion of the population has any need for
anything more advanced.

Wrong. The human body is sufficiently complex that
medical actions should be taken by using the individual's
preferences for the various outcomes, weighted by the
probabilities. This applies to the whole population.

The patient does not need to know any of that. It's the
medical team's job to explain the alternatives.

And it's the patient's job to make an effort to understand
them and to weigh them intelligently. Herman's is a counsel
of perfection, but on this point he's not wrong.

Brian
.

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