Re: Reponse to Robbie

That's fine, but most of us walking the earth can't analyze the DNA of
every animal we see. We call some animals "dogs" and others "cats"
based upon other cues.

You seem to think you're arguing for common sense, but you're actually
violating it. "Common sense" and "generalities," I have been arguing,
don't serve us nearly so well when we actually apply them to specific
cases, or try to use them to solve specific problems. They only appear
to work so long as we're not willing to think about our subjects all
that deeply.

Or, in other words, while we're being idiotic about them.

Jim

Scottie Bowman wrote:

> '...For one thing, if you're really unfamiliar with it,
> how do you know you're not misidentifying it? ...'
>
> Since we're all directors of genotyping labs, how about:
>
> 'Whatever their appearance or other attributes, all animals
> whose DNA contains the following units (listed) are dogs.'
>
> Scottie B.
>
>

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Received on Thu Jul 17 09:29:48 2003