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army1987 comments on The Universal Medical Journal Article Error - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: PhilGoetz 29 April 2014 05:57PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 06 April 2013 07:01:50PM *  12 points [-]

The results of this study indicate that artificial food colorings do not affect the behavior of school-age children who are claimed to be sensitive to these agents.

Translated into logic:

!∃child ( eats(child, coloring) ⇨ hyperactive(child) ) )

That's an uncharitable interpretation of that sentence. It would mean that if there was a word such as “any” before the phrase “school-age children”, but there isn't. The zero article before plural nouns in English doesn't generally denote an universal quantifier; “men are taller than women” doesn't mean ∀x ∈ {men} ∀y ∈ {women} x.height > y.height. The actual meaning of the zero article before plural nouns in English is context-dependent and non-trivial to formalize.

Are you a non-native English speaker by any chance? (So am I FWIW, but the definite article in my native language has a very similar meaning to the zero article in English in contexts like these.)

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