Induction and "The Raven Paradox" (classic problem in scientific method, from Carl Hempel):http://tinyurl.com/ykwnffj
http://www.experiment-resources.com/raven-paradox.html
http://tinyurl.com/cbwwvp
(There are fuller, more technical treatments of Hempel's paradox on the Web, but these are a start.)
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2 comments:
an astute reader sends me this older article from Alaska (of an 18000-to-1 shot):
http://tinyurl.com/ybdd8f6
I don't see where there's any paradox when it comes to Ravens. They are black, unless they're abnormal.
All organisms can have abnormal individuals, but that doesn't mean squat unless one of those individuals happens to be in a blurry video that is used to make a determination that some presumably extinct organism is still around.
In other words, the bird in the blurry video isn't a normal or an abnormal Ivory Billed Woodpecker. It MAY be a Pileated Woodpecker.
All the wishing and wanting in the world isn't going to make Ivory Billed Woodpeckers come back from the dead.
The more I read about the last five years of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker situation, the more I see that a lot of people will fall for and promote any scam, and that pseudo-science is alive and well and is being practiced with vigor at Cornell, and by others.
I have to go now. The Easter Bunny is stopping by and we're going on a Bigfoot hunt. Don't anyone worry, I have set my video camera to deliberately misfocus, just in case we come across anything earth shattering.
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