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Article 3287 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Intelligence Testing
Message-ID: <389@tdatirv.UUCP>
Date: 29 Jan 92 20:49:30 GMT
References: <11927@optima.cs.arizona.edu> <1992Jan27.060945.27989@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1992Jan27.105812.8126@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Jan27.180502.16042@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine
Lines: 19

In article <1992Jan27.180502.16042@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
|In article <1992Jan27.105812.8126@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
|>Do the words `thought experiment' mean anything to you?  
|
|  Sure.  And if I conduct a thought experiment and conclude that the moon
|really is made of green cheese, you would be a damn fool to accept that
|as a scientific conclusion.  If, on the other hand, many scientists conducted
|similar thought experiments, and all agreed that the moon was made of green
|cheese, there might be some reason to take note.

Take note maybe, but little else.  A thought experiment is *never* conclusive
in science.  At best it may suggest a new idea or clarify the implications
of some model or concept.  But no more than that.  Before the ideas so
generated can be accepted they must be verified by real, repeatable,
observation.
-- 
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uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)



