Page 14
Thursday, April 18, 2013
The Rhinoceros Times Greensboro
The New York Times Crossword Puzzle
No. 0414
“MY TREAT” By Elizabeth C. Gorski / Edited by Will Shortz
Across
1 Parrot
5 Jumping-on-amattress sound
10 What hist. and econ. majors get 1 3 P e l é ’s g i v e n n a m e 18 Jesus, for one 19 Some navels
21 It starts every M a r c h i n N . Y. C . 22 New Age pianist 23 “Bummer!”
24 One paying a flat rate
25 Mountain-climbing hazard 27 Actress Lorna 28 Contracted agreement
29 No longer fit in 31 “Kitchy-___!”
32 Lead-in to meter
33 2012 film title character who was c o m p u t e r- g e n e r a t e d 34 Italian Renaissance composer Giovanni
RELEASE DATE: 4/21/2013
35 Provoke
3 7 I t ’s h i g h i n We s t Africa
4 0 S o m e r e c h a rg e a b l e s 4 1 Wo r l d l y f i g u r e ? 4 3 O d o r- _ _ _
44 Naval flier
47 Reach, as new heights
For any three answers, call from a touch-tone phone: 1-900-285-5656, $1.49 each minute; or, with a credit card, 1-800814-5554.
4 8 S u ff i c i e n t , i n “Macbeth”
94 Burns in the kitchen, maybe
3 1984 “educational” Va n H a l e n s o n g
50 Govt. agent
98 “I know the answer!”
5 1998 Grammynominated song by t h e Ve r v e
4 9 O t h e r- w o r l d l y ? 5 1 S u r v e i l l a n c e o rg . 53 Join, in a way
55 Lasagna cheese
58 “Love Me, I’m a Liberal” singer 6 2 P a r t y o rg .
63 “The Matrix” hero 64 Lb. and oz.
65 Linguist Chomsky 66 “Say that again?” 67 Chicago mayor Emanuel 69 Sitting area?
71 Broadway title role for Audrey Hepburn 7 2 Tr i B e C a n e i g h b o r 73 “The ___ Love” (R.E.M. hit)
74 “Of course, señor!” 75 ___ Balls (bygone snack cakes) 77 Sevilla cheer 7 9 To p p e r
80 Blackbird
8 1 A r c h e r ’s w o o d source
83 Panther figurine material 84 51-Across forerunner
85 Carrier to Amsterdam
87 More spine-tingling 89 OPEC nation currency 91 Circus tent
Uncle Orson (Continued from page 11)
takes this form: “All Greeks are human. Socrates is a Greek. Therefore Socrates is human.” That’s a valid syllogism. But Heilbron’s example is the equivalent of saying, “Socrates is a Greek. (All B are A.) Socrates is human. (All B are C.) Therefore all Greeks are human. (All A are C.)” Utter nonsense! Conceivably, this could still be a typo, or a case where an editor, faced with two versions of the premise, chose the wrong one to keep. Except that Heilbron goes on to explain that philosophers were regarded as superior to mathematicians because syllogisms were based on a consensus about the real world, and geometry was about pure abstractions that could not exist in reality – a line without width or breadth, perfectly straight, etc. But this is absurd. Consensus about the real world is a part of inductive logic, in which repeated experience leads to generalized, but perpetually questionable,
9 5 P o n t i a c ’s t r i b e
9 9 Wr i t e r S a n t h a R a m a ___
4 Bump
6 N e w Yo r k n a t i v e
100 Response to “I promise I will”
7 Quaint stopovers
103 Where cruisers cruise
10 Setting of Barbara K i n g s o l v e r ’s “ T h e Poisonwood Bible”
1 0 2 Wo r d s o f d e n i a l
107 Free
108 Pkg. insert
109 Phone pad letters 11 0 P u s h y t y p e s ?
111 D u t c h p a i n t e r Ve r m e e r 11 2 C o l l e c t i o n o f Norse tales
11 3 A u n t o f 1 9 6 0 s T V 11 5 K n i t t e r ’s s t a s h 11 7 D r y a s a b o n e
11 8 “ T h e p l e a s u r e _ _ _ mine” 11 9 F r a g r a n t n e c k l a c e 120 Estevez of Hollywood
121 Rice-A-___
122 Apartment rental sign 1 2 3 B e n e f i t s a g c y.
124 “They are,” in Spanish class
1 2 5 O rg . f o r s o m e g o o d drivers Down
1 Ring site
2 L a d y B i r d J o h n s o n ’s real first name
8 Actress Long
9 P a g a n i n i ’s b i r t h p l a c e
11 I d o l i z e s
12 It can have three or four legs
1
2
3
15 Buttinsky
16 Like many basketball drills 17 No-good end?
20 Theater keepsake
26 Classic novel subtitled “Adventures in a Desert Island,” with “The” 30 “How sad”
33 Discombobulated 3 4 M T V ’s e a r l y f a n base 3 6 Vi n t a g e v e h i c l e 38 A VHF channel
3 9 R e a d y, w i t h “ u p ” 42 “The Black Cat” writer 45 Collate
4 6 M e d i c a l s u ff i x
51 Flat storage site
conclusions. Syllogisms, on the other hand, are loved precisely because they are abstract – like geometry. They deal with validity, not factuality. “All ducks are geese. Donald is a duck. Therefore Donald is a goose.” This statement happens not to be true because ducks are not geese at all. But the syllogism is valid because if both premises were true, the conclusion would be inescapable. Syllogisms are about validity; truth is a separate discussion. Then there’s this syllogism: “All bucks are deer. One dollar is a buck. Therefore one dollar is a deer.” In this case, both premises are accurate enough. But that “buck” in one proposition is not even remotely the same thing as “buck” in the other. The coincidence of sounds (“buck” and “buck”) is meaningless. In fact this “syllogism” says, “All A is B. All X is Y. Therefore all A is Y.” Silly. A pun, not logic. The syllogism is invalid regardless of whether the premises are true or not.
5
18
19
23
24
27
28
32
6
37
12
68
73
74
80
81 85
40
41
56
109
104
72 77
114
123
54 When repeated, a 1963 #2 hit
56 French 101 pronoun 59 Kiss alternative … or a hint to the starts of 3-, 5-, 10-, 14-, 26-, 64- and 68-Down
59
89
68 Flowering plant used to treat liver ailments
7 0 Wa c o - t o - A u s t i n d i r.
106
107
116
124
125
9 0 “ T h e G o o d Wi f e ” fig.
104 Plays tug of war
91 Kind of voyage?
9 6 M a k i n g , a s o n e ’s way
This is all elementary logic. But Heilbron writes as if he has no comprehension of the difference between syllogism, which is demonstratio potissima precisely because it is independent of reality and does not depend on consensus among philosophers, and induction, which derives conclusions from repeated, uncontradicted experience. Induction says, “So far every living mammal we’ve found has a sequence of vertebrae enclosing a bundle of nerves. We therefore predict that all future mammals we find will also be vertebrates.” So then a naturalist in some obscure location reports (complete with photographs, videos and X-rays) that he has found a furry creature that gave birth to living offspring and suckled its young, yet whose nervous system is not enclosed in a column of articulated bones. The arguments that would ensue might be definitional: “Obviously, it’s not a mammal.” “No, it’s not a vertebrate mammal.” And so on. Or they might be observational: “This specimen he used merely has a birth defect. It’s a miracle that it lived to reproduce,
117
99 Makes over
88 Breyers competitor
7 8 G o t o ff t h e s t a g e
83 Approximately
112
86 John, to Elton John
9 2 “ Wi t h a n y l u c k ! ”
82 Step aside, judicially
108
121
7 5 Vi a l f l u i d s
76 Actor ___ Patrick Harris
97
101
120
64 Light, fruity alcoholic drink
96
90
95
105
61
84
88
100
60
79
83
115
122
52 Daft
78
111
119
61 Points on a bus route
71
110
118
57 Attach
66
82 87
103
58
65
76
99
113
57
94
102
42
50
75
98
36
47
70
86
17
31
55
93
16
26
46
64 69
15
35
45
54
63
14
22
30
39
53
62
13
21
49
52
60 Good laughs
11
34
44
92
10
29
38
67
9
25
48
91
8
20
43
51
7
33
13 Lump of coal, to Frosty
14 2012 film starring Johnny Depp as a bloodsucker
4
93 Stopped playing games
97 Place of peace and simplicity
101 Muse of astronomy 1 0 5 S c o t ’s l a n g u a g e
106 “I’ll answer your questions” 111 S p u r n , a s a l o v e r 11 2 M o n r o e o f t h e N.B.A.
11 3 C o m e d y r o u t i n e 11 4 _ _ _ - r o c k
11 6 “ _ _ _ f o r E v i d e n c e ”
but notice that its babies do have spinal columns, so the species is a vertebrate mammal, and this is merely a deformed specimen.” That is how inductive reasoning works: It relies on an assumption of universality, which is always tentative; there is always the unspoken “so far.” This is what science depends on to determine the truth value of a proposition; syllogisms are only to determine the validity of a conclusion drawn from two premises. I know, how boring is all this? My point is that by page 7, in the first instance where Heilbron does what he promises his whole book will do – attempt to explain the intellectual context in which Galileo was developing his thoughts and methods – his writing is flat wrong and a hopeless muddle. On pages 10 and 11, Heilbron writes about how Galileo returns to music, another “inferior” science but one which was pretty much the family business, since Galileo’s father was an accomplished lutanist (lute (Continued on page 16)