Re: the arrogance of postmodern mumbo jumbo

Philip Deitiker (pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu)
Sun, 06 Oct 1996 22:18:43 GMT

itsd1@teleport.com (Thomas L. Billings) wrote:

>In article <52pa9n$jmi@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu>, pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu (Philip
>Deitiker) wrote:

>> So you contend that his contemporaries believed the world was round
>> but two big to circumnavigate? OK, but what lead them to belive that
>> there were no other land masses. A good staistician would predict that
>> there probablty were.

>Philip,

>Statistics didn't get a good start until the 17th century, with Pascal and
>Fermat making contributioons of note. Let's check the history a bit here,
>hmm?

My point. Whether or not they new how large the world was immaterial
since they had no way of knowing how many intervening landmasses there
were. Essentially, a circumnavigable voyage is the only way of
establishing a precedent.