🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <BwsCFH.G1I@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
[discussion of non-black non-crows deleted]

>For simplicity, let us say that there are 10^6 crows and 10^50 objects
>which we can recognize, most of which will be non-black.  Now if a
>crow is selected "at random" and found to be black, we have ascertained
>that one of the 10^6 objects named "crow" satisfies what we are trying
>to show.  However, if a non-black object is selected at random and found
>not to be a crow, we have only established that onw of the 10^50 objects
>satisfies it.  In addition, we have reason to believe that crows are far
>more similar than non-black objects; we consider them to have a common
>biological origin, not going too far back, while many of the non-black
>objects are not even in the avian classification.

     I would like to reiterate that there is no reason to assume that 
     the number of 'objects' or 'things' is finite.  That makes statistical
     considerations (and by extension induction) far more difficult.
     And if there happen to be an infinite number of crows...

                                dale bass

-- 
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926