Certitude and Semantics

“Certitude belongs exclusively to those who only own one encyclopedia.”
~Robert Anton Wilson~

I had this argument at work where I pulled this quote out and someone accused me of a logical fallacy. Well I hate to differ but I was right. The underlying premise here is that if you only have one reference then as far as you know the data is absolutely correct. Now as you check more and more references discrepancy and errors creep in to make you doubt the validity of the information.

Actually it was an innocent bystander to the argument that took this quote and wished to argue semantics. They actually pulled out a dictionary and looked up certitude. This proved my point exactly for all I had to do was look at another dictionary to draw their definition into question. Actually I checked 3 and they were all different.

They then tried to contrive an argument on the example of a wikipedia article on someones home address. The assumptions were many and flawed but since it was hypothetical I can shoot it down easier. They assume they got the right person, They assume the person hadn’t moved since the posting and they assumed the person wasn’t lying. These additional points were enough to stop that line of reasoning.

Well I must give my argumentative friend credit because they actually tried to use Occam’s razor to state that we MUST operate under simpler beliefs. To this my argument is that they may have used the razor too liberally to ignore some statistical sample size and over simplified. We only accept a certain amount of information as absolutely valid out of simplicity but we are choosing to ignore the error in this. That doesn’t mean the error doesn’t exist.

I haven’t heard a rebuttal to this yet so maybe the argument is over.

Detecting Autism Early

“The earlier you treat a child for autism, the more of an impact you can have on that child’s future,” Sally Ozonoff

The average age for children to be diagnosed with autism is three. By then language and social delays make the doctors assessment easy but the therapists job is harder. The kids have to break bad habits and re-learn skills that can take an effort. So the earlier we can detect the disorder the better.

Parents of children with autism have long suspected there was a way to know their child was different. Now researchers agree and are developing tests to help these kids. Turns out if you watch closely to how they play there are clues.

Children all play differently but if they have autism they are more likely to spin and rotate items they play with. Seem they also explore objects by looking at them sideways.

These little hints are what parents notice but don’t really give then the credit due. Researchers have found neurotypical children seldom do these things. So it is a major clue to help in detecting autism early.

If you suspect your child has autism try to see if they have these signs then talk to your doctor about it.