3 ideas
| 9783 | While no two classes coincide in membership, there are distinct but coextensive attributes [Cartwright,R] |
| Full Idea: Attributes and classes are said to be distinguished by the fact that whereas no two classes coincide in membership, there are supposed to be distinct but coextensive attributes. | |
| From: Richard Cartwright (Classes and Attributes [1967], §2) | |
| A reaction: This spells out the standard problem of renates and cordates, that creatures with hearts and with kidneys are precisely coextensive, but that these properties are different. Cartwright then attacks the distinction. |
| 22200 | If you eliminate the impossible, the truth will remain, even if it is weird [Conan Doyle] |
| Full Idea: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. | |
| From: Arthur Conan Doyle (The Sign of Four [1890], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: A beautiful statement, by Sherlock Holmes, of Eliminative Induction. It is obviously not true, of course. Many options may still face you after you have eliminated what is actually impossible. |
| 16861 | A false theory could hardly rival the explanatory power of natural selection [Darwin] |
| Full Idea: It can hardly be supposed that a false theory would explain, in so satisfactory a manner as does the theory of natural selection, the several large classes of facts above specified. | |
| From: Charles Darwin (The Origin of the Species [1859], p.476), quoted by Peter Lipton - Inference to the Best Explanation (2nd) 11 'The scientific' | |
| A reaction: More needs to be said, since the whims of God could explain absolutely everything (in a manner that would be somehow less that fully satisfying to the enquiring intellect). |