Re: AAH
Richard Foy (rfoy@netcom.com)
Sun, 14 Jul 1996 01:09:50 GMT
In article <4s3n8c$dio@kira.cc.uakron.edu>,
david l burkhead <david8@dax.cc.uakron.edu> wrote:
>
>>> You see, it's up to those proposing the hypothesis to provide
>>>evidence for the hypothesis. Okay, newborns kick their legs in water.
>>>Well and good. But they _also_ kick their legs when _not_ in water.
>>>Thus, leg kicking is a general newborn behavior. It is not something
>>>special about their being in water. Thus, the "in water" part of the
>>>claim is irrelevant and the kicking has no discernable connection to
>>>being in water. The result is that "kicking" is not evidence of any
>>>"instinctual swimming" in newborns.
>>
>>This is fallacious logic!
>
> You are absolutely right. Any claim that infants kicking when in
>water (when one considers that they also kick when not in water) is
>evidence of aquatic _anything_ (or evidence of an "instinctual"
>swimming ability--remember the topic of this thread?) is fallacious
>logic.
1. If newborns kick in water, it may or may not be an indication that
the kicking is an aquatic adaption.
2. If newborns kick when born on land it tends to support the idea
that newborns have an instinct to kick. It provides as by itself
absolutely no data regarding the cause of the instinct.
--
"The form is the content in motion, and the content is the form at
rest." --Northrup Frye
URL http://www.he.tdl.com/~hfanoe/udc.html Unity and Diversity
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