Re: Idempotence and "Replication Insensitivity" are equivalent ?

From: Bob Badour <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca>
Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2006 18:21:54 GMT
Message-ID: <6XeRg.37373$9u.314970@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca>

Marshall wrote:

> Bob Badour wrote:
>

>>Marshall wrote:
>>
>>I wonder whether this last conclusion is anti-empirical.

>
> By "anti-empircal" I guess you mean "not supported by
> observation" rather than "refuted by observation?" I claim
> that there are rhetorical techniques that correlate with sex,
> and that my observations of the troll's use of rhetoric leads
> me to the conclusion that he is a man. However this is of
> course a weak conclusion.
>
> Amusing idea: write a machine learning program and feed
> it texts for which one knows the sex of the author, in order
> to produce a technique for establishing sex from someone's
> writings. I imagine it could be modestly successful.

Are you suggesting that she uses "that" a lot? While that might be suggestive of male sex if she were an anglophone, I don't know that it would mean that much for someone that has a different mother tongue.

>>I really have no opinion on Pamela's
>>gender, and I don't see how it matters.

>
> You're certainly right that it doesn't matter.
>
>

>>Are you not creating an opportunity to impugn your own
>>credibility? Is there a need to?

>
> Fair points all.
>
>
> Marshall

Thank you, at least, for modelling intellectual honesty. Received on Sat Sep 23 2006 - 13:21:54 CDT