Re: chimps on the savanna? Nooooo.....

H. M. Hubey (hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu)
19 Oct 1995 22:51:49 -0400

Alex Duncan <aduncan@mail.utexas.edu> writes:

>counter to the authoritative statement from "he who thinks horse's knees
>point backwards" that chimps don't venture into open country.

That's cute. Now we have things like "don't venture into open
country." What does that mean?

That's like saying that animals that fly never touch the ground
or have nothing to do with water or that they never land on
trees.

This argumentative style is rather puerile. Now you are following
in Moore's footsteps. Tsk tsk..

This is why verbiage arguments are best fought with verbiage
arguments. There is this simple problem that numbers will
solve; that is the problem of verbiage.

You see this is the paradox of the heap from the old Greek days.
If you have a heap of sand and you remove a grain of sand
is it still a heap? Sure, it is. What if you remove another?
Sure it is, because if you remove a grain of sand from a heap
it's still a heap. So it will always be a heap.

A more emotional and modern version can be found in the
Paradoxicon. It goes like this:

If you touch your mother's toe, is it incest?
If you touch your mother's ankle, is is incest?
If you touch your mother's knee, is it incest?
If you touch your mother's thigh, is it incest?
....

Next time you (and your comrades) want to poke fun at AAT
you should make sure that you don't inhabit glass houses.

Let's see, where were we? Oh, yes. On a scale of 0-100
let's see how these words fit:

venture,
wander,
travel,
inhabit,
walk around
go for walk
hang around
poke around
snoop around
...blah blah blah...

If the whole basis and force of your argument depends on the
useage of specific words over which you can fight for
decades, you should know that the opposition can also fight
for decades over the same words or similar words. If you want
to cut it out, then try numbers. It's easy. No fuss, no muss,
no useless fighting...

Do you want to solve a problem or want to convince yourself
that you won. The last buggy whip maker made the best buggy
whips. But they went the way of the dinosaurs, extinct!!

Either face the issues squarely or just call it quits.

-- 





				Regards, Mark

				http://www.smns.montclair.edu/~hubey