Rubaiyats of Lote-Tree

That was interesting. Frankly the writer of the article seems to confuse two separate things that he lumps into the notion, "vagueness." For instance, when he says that this is vague:

Doctors use vagueness all the time. For example, when researching for a project to automate messages about the condition of babies in intensive care, my colleagues found that doctors' written reports say things like: "heart rate OK most of the night, on the high side in the morning".

That is very different from this being vague:

Take the Ensatina salamander, which has six subspecies. Suppose subspecies A can interbreed with B, B with C, and so on until the end of the chain when F can no longer breed with A. Intuitively you want to say that they are all one species, but your criterion disagrees.

The doctor example is vague because of lack of will or necessity to be specific or to measure. The doctors had the ability to measure the heart rate and record it exactly, can even plot it if they so wished. But either it wasn't necessary to or they didn't have the correct instrumentation to measure it, they wrote down a vague statement.

That is very different from the salamander example. That example is vague because of scientific complexity, because the phenomena has interconnected variables that make a clear distinction impossible to catagorize.

At least that's how I see it.

Virgil, I think with the salamander bit he refers to the vagueness of putting all these salamanders in the same species even if they are not by their own criterion, thus again not being concrete by choice, they make make them separate species as well. and with the doctor, he again refers to the ability to be specific, but opting for a more vague description which leaves much to interpretation.

You're right Aimus. I then have to conclude, there's nothing of substance to what he's talking about.

But complexity does exist as a phenomena and that does make it difficult to find firm absolutes. But he's not even talking about that.

Ack! too much vagueness. My head is spinning!

I don't agree with the article either! Science Vague!!? No Way!