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To: Frumious Bandersnatch
...deduction is something you can absolutely show is true from the available facts (e.g. if a girl was 14 in January of 2006, then in June of 2007, it can be shown conclusively that she had passed her 15th birthday)...

But what is called a fact today might not be a fact tomorrow. Suppose the girl's birthday was February 29th? I don't think 2006 was a leap year, so the day of her birth did not even occur that year. Did the Earth revolve more than once around the Sun during the specified interval? Yes. But what exactly is meant by the concept of "birthday?" I see no absolute truth in the facts presented.

15 posted on 11/01/2007 7:38:55 PM PDT by Socratic (“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.” - Corrie Ten Boom)
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To: Socratic
When you change the facts around as you do, the underlying assumption, of course, changes. Given the facts that I gave you, then it an absolute certainty I was correct. The underlying assumptions, in this case, were that you understood that twelve months equals one year and that January comes before June in the hierarchy of months. Furthermore, the concept of "birthday" is generally well understood to mean the anniversary of the date of one's birth. While the way we count birthdays has changed (we used to speak of a 13 year-old as being in his 14th year), the sequential nature of them has not.

I gave an example to show the use of deduction. Without changing the facts around or the generally acceptable underlying assumptions which I made, can you show that I did not use deductive reasoning?
17 posted on 11/01/2007 7:50:43 PM PDT by Frumious Bandersnatch
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To: Socratic
Also, your question about whether the earth revolved around the earth more than once in a year is a strawman since, by definition, a year consists of one revolution (except in the case of Bolivia, which has more).

Let us leave out the "what ifs" and logical fallacies please. Too often there are those who are willing to manipulate the facts to fit their worldview (i.e. MSM). Please don't fall into that trap.
19 posted on 11/01/2007 8:00:32 PM PDT by Frumious Bandersnatch
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To: Socratic

Are you questioning the age or the birthday? The leap year person will have indeed aged another year, birthday or no.


186 posted on 11/06/2007 12:06:28 PM PST by purpleraine
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