Torvaun comments on Rationalization - Less Wrong

21 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 30 September 2007 07:29PM

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Comment author: Torvaun 21 February 2011 02:17:58PM 2 points [-]

Uh, no. Pressure affects boiling point. If you're at a different pressure, it should not boil at 100 degrees C. If your water is contaminated by, say, alcohol, the boiling point will change. We aren't trying to explain away datapoints, we're using them to build a system that's larger than "Water boils at 100 degrees Centigrade." Just adding "at standard temperature and pressure," to the end of that gives a wider range of predictable and falsifiable results.

What we're doing is rationality, not rationalization.