Biblical Hebrew Forum

["wattswestmaas" <wattswestmaas AT eircom.net>]

Dear Liz - I'd say that you were definately referring to a Crow!!

Based on the assumption that white swans were very common and everybody was
seeing them and the likelihood that someone would take the trouble to point
out the unusual rather than to exclaim the obvious.  Fair answer?

Regards Chris



The reference to white swans and induction is extremely interesting.
Let us say that you saw 1000 white swans and 2 black ones.
Further let's say that you saw 1000 black crows and (for argument's sake)
two white ones.
Now suppose I told you that there is a white bird out there.
Would you assume it to be a swan or a crow?
Liz

> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Peter Kirk
> Sent: Saturday, May 22, 2004 2:23 PM
> To: furuli AT online.no
> Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Prophetic Perfect? Psalm 107
>
> On 20/05/2004 14:01, furuli AT online.no wrote:
>
> >
> > ...
> >
> > To ignore the examples that contradict one's view with the argument
> > that they are errors, does not recommend itself as a good
> scientific
> > method. Errors will occur, but they must be shown to be
> errors on the
> > basis of a scientific analysis. If you have studied the
> Philosophy of
> > science, you should be familiar with the problem of induction; one
> > million white swans do not prove that all swans are white, but two
> > black swans, who are not dyed or have gone through a fire, will
> > falsify the hypothesis. Thus, the 1.000 non-past WAYYIQTOLs are a
> > stronger basis for saying that WAYYIQTOL is not
> semantically speaking
> > past tense than the 12.000 WAYYIQTOLs occurring in past
> narratives. ...
>
>
> Your argument from swans is an interesting one. Suppose we do
> find a million white swans and two black ones. What do we
> conclude? Of course not that all swans are white. But we
> suspect that there is some reason for the exceptions. Maybe
> the black ones are a different species, or mutations. Or
> maybe they have been in some special environment which has
> changed their colour. Good scholars will look for a reason.
> But they will not argue that "not all swans are white,
> therefore the colour of swans is irrelevant". However, that
> seems to be how you argue when you reject the significance of
> the observation that the great majority of WAYYIQTOLs are
> sequential, and most of these are in past context although
> some are future because they follow future verb forms.
>
>
> --
> Peter Kirk
> peter AT qaya.org (personal)
> peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
> http://www.qaya.org/
>
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