Except that isn’t true. On my holiday, I spent one and a half days in Bangkok, followed by two weeks in Pattaya.
Thus I said “Last year I took a holiday in Thailand. Aside from the two weeks I spent in Pattaya, I also spent a day and a half in Bangkok.”
Pattaya is the most important of the two, right?
Princhester has deliberately re-worded my sentence as :
“Last year I took a holiday during which, aside from the time I spent in Pattaya, I spent my time in Bangkok.”
Princhester’s highly contrived rewording of my sentence doesn’t change the fact that most of my time was in fact spent in Pattaya.
We were discussing the meaning of another sentence. The original sentence which we were discussing WAS sarcastic in tone. Your example of such is probably better than my example re my holiday.
Except that isn’t true. On my holiday, I spent one and a half days in Bangkok, followed by two weeks in Pattaya.
Thus I said “Last year I took a holiday in Thailand. Aside from the two weeks I spent in Pattaya, I also spent a day and a half in Bangkok.”
Pattaya is the most important of the two, right?
Princhester has deliberately re-worded my sentence as :
“Last year I took a holiday during which, aside from the time I spent in Pattaya, I spent my time in Bangkok.”
Princhester’s highly contrived rewording of my sentence doesn’t change the fact that most of my time was in fact spent in Pattaya.
We were discussing the meaning of another sentence. The original sentence which we were discussing WAS sarcastic in tone. Your example of such is probably better than my example re my holiday.
Peter this is GQ. I have asked a couple of questions about what someone would mean by certain sentences. I used no names and did not make it personal. If you have something to add regarding the GQ questions I have asked, that would certainly be appropriate in this forum, I should think.
If you want to debate wider issues, including such issues as what questions I should have asked, and about which sentences, and in particular if you want to make comments about my behaviour, this is not the place.
That depends on what you mean by “important”. That you spent more time in Pattaya is obvious. However, the wording of the sentence is such that it dismisses the time spent in Pattaya as of lesser importance than the time spent in Bangkok. Either that, or it treats the time spent in Pattaya as already known by the listener, with the side trip to Bangkok as new (and thus more important) information.
Basically, the construction of the above sentence is such that it is attempting to make Bangkok (not Pattaya) the topic of discussion. Because of that, if you were to say the above to me, I would ask “How did you like Bangkok?” before asking about Pattaya.
> “Last year I took a holiday during which, aside from the time I
> spent in Pattaya, I spent my time in Bangkok.”
There’s no way to tell from this sentence the relative amounts of time spent in Pattaya and Bangkok. There’s no way to tell whether the speaker thinks that the time spent in Pattaya is more or less important than the time spent in Bangkok. All you can say is that it’s being presupposed that he spent time in Pattaya and that it’s being asserted that he spent time in Bangkok. Importance is something that could only be inferred from the entire conversation, not from this single sentence.
So Wendell you would say that the point of the sentence is to point out that during the holiday my time was spent in Bangkok, and that the bit about Pattaya is something of an add on, an optional extra, as it were?
I suppose that you could say that the Bangkok trip is the point of the sentence and the Pattaya trip is an add-on. That’s one way of restating the assertion/presupposition distinction, I guess. But there’s no way of telling the importance or the length of the two trips from this one sentence. You need to look at the whole conversation, not just this one sentence.
Assume Joe greatly dislikes wind.
The reason Joe doesn’t go to the beach is, aside from the fact that the water is blue and is by nature scary to him, because it can be windy, in fact spectacularly windy.
I’d say Joe doesn’t go to the beach for both reasons.
Stephen Hawking said “The reason most scientists don’t believe in astrology is because it is not consistent with our theories that have been tested by experiment.”
Randi decided to attack him for saying that, claiming that " it allows the ignorant to fortify their fallacious opinions about what science really is."
He says that Hawking should have said "the reason most scientists don’t believe in astrology is, aside from the fact that it is based on irrational premises and is by nature incredible, because it does not pass any simple scientific test, and in fact it fails any test spectacularly. "
Seeing the sentence in context, it seems to me that Hawking’s main reason is “experiment”. Randi is putting most emphasis on “irrational premises” while leaving “experiment” in second place.
See the sentence in context, and tell me which is Randi’s more important argument.
I am happy for people to look at the sentence in contention in context (although I think this thread is going to turn into a GD which was not my intention). However, I strongly suggest that readers actually look at the sentence in context ie use Peter’s link. Relying on the parts of the whole paragraph that Peter has quoted would be unwise.
In particular, you might care to look at the three sentences preceding the sentence in contention.
It looks to me as if Randi also places the main emphasis on experiment, but also adds the “irrational premises” clause as an extra. So he is modifying Hawkings argument only by supplementing it with an additional argument, but still leaving the main emphasis on Hawking’s original argument.
Gotta love the way that Princhester implies dishonesty on my part, even though I myself posted a link to the original sentence, and I advised people to look at it in context.
“It looks to me as if Randi also places the main emphasis on experiment, but also adds the “irrational premises” clause as an extra. So he is modifying Hawkings argument only by supplementing it with an additional argument, but still leaving the main emphasis on Hawking’s original argument.”
If his main argument is the same as Hawking’s, why is he disagreeing with Hawking so vehemently?
Clearly Randi’s emphasis is the failure of astrology to meet any scientific (experimental) standard but in the discourse he makes it clear that he wishes the subordinate phrase added to emphasise that the reason for lack of experimental evidence is that astrology is based on irrational premises and is by nature incredible. Randi assumes that no-one is going to dispute the “incredible” nature of astrology.
He compares this to unproven theories where the basis for the theory, while not commonly accepted, is credible and based on rational premises whether true or not.
The sentance reads exactly the same way as Princhester’s OP. The emphasis is on scientific test. The “irrational premises” is an aside and as such, is not the main thrust of the sentance.
Alternatively, Randi could be using the “aside from” sarcastically in the manner of Eonwe, above. Were that the case, the emphasis would be on “irrational premises.” Like so, maybe:
“The reason I don’t live on the moon, aside from its uninhabitable conditions and tremendous distance from Earth, is that I wouldn’t be able to watch Queer Eye For the Straight Guy without a really good satellite dish.”
Maybe Randi’s saying that scientists shouldn’t need to construct tests to decide whether or not to believe in astrology, because the fact that it’s based on completely irrational premises should be sufficient to make their decision for them.
Gadarene read Randi’s three sentences prior to the sentence in contention, consider what rhetorical purpose they serve, then consider whether the possibility you advance actually fits the context.
Manduck, I’d ask you to go back and read again. I would suggest to you that Randi is not merely modifying Hawkings argument as you suggest. Hawkings says that scientists don’t believe in astrology because “it is not consistent with our theories that have been tested by experiment”. Randi says that they don’t believe in astrology because astrology itself does not pass tests, ie fails experiments.
I submit to you Manduck that the difference between the two is that Hawkings denies astrology because it does not fit in with theories tested by experiment, and Randi because astrology itself fails experiment.
don’t ask I’m not sure what you mean here. You do appreciate that both quantum mechanics and germ theory are proven by experiment despite their seemingly ridiculousness, don’t you?
I would submit to you that that is Randi’s point. Randi’s point is that one should not dismiss astrology merely because it is seemingly irrational and incredible (even though, as an aside, astrology clearly is irrational and incredible) because, as Randi illustrates with the quantum mechanics and germ theory examples, dismissing something just because it seems laughable can lead one astray.
Rather (Randi is saying) one should dismiss astrology because it fails experiment. Pure and simple.