Wacek, (01)
I agree with you that there are degrees of precision,
but not degrees of truth. (02)
My claim is that a vague statement and a precise statement
about the same subject are *equally* true. The following
three statements are true: (03)
1. The sun is 93 million miles from the earth with an
accuracy of about 1 or 2 percent. (04)
2. At the aphelion, the sun is 152 million kilometers
from earth, and at the perihelion it is 147 million km
from earth. (05)
3. The mean distance from the earth to the sun is
149.6 million kilometers. (06)
If anything, statement #1 is better qualified, since the
expected error is stated explicitly. However, in the
absence of other qualification, the default error is
one-half of the last significant digit (i.e., at most
500,000 miles for point #2 and 50,000 miles for #3). (07)
John (08)
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