po8crg

This is exactly what bothers me and resulted in me wanting to look up the question online. On the quiz the other 2 questions were definitive. This one technically could have more than one answer so this is where phycologists actually mess up when trying to give us a trick question. The ball at .4 and the bat at 1.06 doesn’t break the rule either.

Interesting: these could cover a couple of misunderstandings, one is that B>=100, the other that "The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball" does not mean B-b=100, but that B-b>=100.

In ordinary langu... (read more)

I think it's worth relating the argument about the Resurrection and the argument about rabbits chewing their cud. We now have a reasonably good definition of "dead". We know that classical civilisation in 33AD didn't.

Assuming that there was a person called Jesus and that he was crucified, we have no means of knowing whether he was, in fact, dead or not. It's necessarily impossible to apply the modern definition since the ECG hadn't been invented then.

There are scientific phenomena that would result in the observations that are reported in the ... (read more)

Depends on people's definition of truth, surely?

If your scoring system for a conjunction statement where one part is true and the other is untrue is to score that as half-true, then the probabilities for the Reagan case are wholly reasonable.

(ie for "Reagan will provide federal support for unwed mothers and cut federal support to local governments", you score 1 for both parts true, 0.5 for one part true and 0 for neither part true, while for "Reagan will provide federal support for unwed mothers" you can only score 1 for true and 0 for ... (read more)

Consider whether your journey is necessary - not travelling is always safer than travelling.

Consider what you can do to restructure your life to minimise the need for routine travel - Can you live closer to your place of employment/study, either by moving your home, or moving your employment/study? Can you work or study from home (at all? more often?)

I now live 20 minutes' walk from my employment instead of an hour's drive + 20 minute's walk, and there are many other benefits (much cheaper), but the safety improvements of not having to drive, especially a... (read more)

Also, live traffic data to use the available road-space more efficiently. My GPS does that already, and will divert me around traffic jams when there are available side roads, but will stay on the main route when the side-roads as just as bad.

One trick I have for fatigued driving is to always have a stimulant drink in the car so I can pull over, drink it, revive within a few minutes and that enables me to concentrate for 10-20 minutes, enough to find a motel or (sometimes) get home.

And, indeed, we have words or phrases for particular female physical traits that men find attractive. Look how many words there are for different shades of yellow or light brown hair, compared to just "brunette" for darker brown / black.

[Blonde, and the many pat phrases like platinum blonde, golden blonde, dirty blonde, etc]

Why? Because men find blondes more attractive on average.

Similarly, there's a set of looks that are not particularly well-correlated or particularly common but is known as "English Rose" because men find it attract... (read more)

Fish, like reptiles are paraphyletic. The cladistic revolutionaries want to abolish the category altogether, or reduce it to just the ray-finned fishes - excluding coelacanths, lungfish, the cartilaginous fish (sharks, rays, skates and chimaeras), and the cyclostomes (hagfish and lampreys).

The result is that some sources will use fish as equivalent to the monophyletic group actinopterygii and others use the traditional polyphyletic pisces. Anytime you see a generalisation about fish that isn't true of sharks, there's a good chance that the original sourc... (read more)

The problem is that it begs the question - using "unborn baby" defines it into the same ethical category as a born baby, different only in location. When you dig down enough, usually that's the point at dispute - is the thing growing in a womb entitled to rights in the manner of a (born) baby, or is it not so entitled.

There are some property-rights thinkers who do hold that it is the location that matters, i.e. the baby is trespassing on the mother's womb, and she's entitled to use deadly force to remove it, but that's not the usual argument.