In previous posts, I have highlighted vague word usages such as most, almost all, danger, safety and some. Before I launch into a few more, I share an exchange I had with Naomi Wolfe a few months ago. She leads the team analyzing the released Pfizer documents and often appears to report on Steve Bannon’s
I’d like to say that this mathematical expression is partially but not completely false: “If A is B squared, then B is the square root of A.” It’s true enough for introducing the concept of square roots even if mathematicians will quibble that it doesn’t take the case of squaring negative numbers into account.
And here I was, eager to hear your rebuttal! Now that you have deleted your statement I will repeat it here for the record:
1: “Exception: A mathematical expression that is partially false is completely false”
Here’s another possible (better? worse?) counterexample: any approximation, for example: the statement “the circumference of a circle of diameter 1 is 3.14159265” True? False? Mostly or partially one or the other?
I’d like to say that this mathematical expression is partially but not completely false: “If A is B squared, then B is the square root of A.” It’s true enough for introducing the concept of square roots even if mathematicians will quibble that it doesn’t take the case of squaring negative numbers into account.
Thanks, Alex. Based on your comment, I will delete my statement.
And here I was, eager to hear your rebuttal! Now that you have deleted your statement I will repeat it here for the record:
1: “Exception: A mathematical expression that is partially false is completely false”
Here’s another possible (better? worse?) counterexample: any approximation, for example: the statement “the circumference of a circle of diameter 1 is 3.14159265” True? False? Mostly or partially one or the other?