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From: lew@ihlpa.UUCP (Lew Mammel, Jr.)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Ken's tautologies
Message-ID: <1892@ihlpa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19-Sep-86 11:53:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlpa.1892
Posted: Fri Sep 19 11:53:16 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Sep-86 01:35:46 EDT
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Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 24

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> 
> Remember, "vertibrates evolved from invertibrates", and "thumbs evolved to
> make it easier to handle toilet paper" are tautologies, not 'facts'.
> 
 
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.

> Regards,
> 
> Ken Arndt

A tautology is a statment that is "true by virtue of its logical form alone"
( Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary) or as I understand it, true
by definition, or trivially true. For example, "All bachelors are unmarried"
is a tautology.

I look forward to having Ken explain how his examples qualify as tautologies.
I will be amazed if he retracts his claim that they are.

Lew Mammel, Jr.