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Originally Posted by Jim
Criminies, Warren, where did you learn grammar? You applied the logical meaning to a grammatical construct?
It does not need to be either-or. It could be used in the sense of "this, otherwise known as that," a possibility which you overlooked in your rush to accuse them of duplicity. Indeed, the use of quotes around "worst case" would indicate this was their intention.
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That was
my first thought, in which case, the "this otherwise known as that" basically functions as an "and", which is symbolized by a comma. From the Chicago Manual of Style 15th edition, page 250:
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6.39Comma or no comma between adjectives. When a noun is preceded by two or more adjectives that could, without affecting the meaning, be joined by and, the adjectives are normally separated by commas.
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That's why I said Praga did them a favor: the "and/," meaning of "or" is the most likely interpretation given G&M's overall project; because otherwise, you have to take the sentence as imply that they did not in fact use "worst case" (their scare quotes) assumptions to replace each uncertainty that they ran into.
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Originally Posted by Jim
It is a misquote and they were right to point it out.
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Not if they want to
win.
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Originally Posted by Jim
You yourself have shown how the revised construction can be misunderstood.
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No, I said the revised construction clarifies the meaning--otherwise you have to take that "or" literally--as in logically. They are physicists after all--I'm sure they understand the Propositional Calculus. Thus, when they point out the missing "or", so as to contrast that with the "this, otherwise known as that/and/," meaning of or, then I guess the only alternative is that they really do intend that the "or" be taken literally.
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Originally Posted by Jim
Also, if Praga got that wrong, what else did he misinterpret? How well does he understand what he read?
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Right. Good point. Now you don't have to take seriously Praga's distinction between the "quantum gravitational regime" and the "semistandard approximation regime", and how the former just may not happen to follow the semistandard rules.
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Originally Posted by Jim
BTW, it's rather intriguing that you accuse them of engaging in an ad hom (which I don't think it is) by pointing out the revision, yet you launch your own ad hom based on their actual words and your misunderstanding of them.
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I thought that the so-called misquotation was pretty trivial as it came out of a footnote and it clarified what I took to be their intended meaning, and was therefore rather mean-spirited, especially considering the respectful tone that Praga took in his own paper.
But now I admit that I was wrong. It was not in fact an ad hom; they apparently thought that the revision changed the substantive meaning of the sentence, therefore implying that they did not in fact use worst case assumptions for all the uncertainties they encountered. Which in turn implies that they cannot offer a reasonably absolute guarantee of the safety of the LHC.