minor quibble: the value of precision

[manaster at umich.edu]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Larry Trask writes (i.a.):
 
"Such usages are in no way a foible of linguists.  When I say that I am
unrelated to you, I expect everyone to understand only that I know of
no link between you and me, and not that I am claiming we belong to
separate species."
 
Hah!  Find me a biologist who will say that we are not related.
Larry is confusing here a man-in-the-street usage with scientific
usage.  As I say, would he be happy if a mathematician or computer
scientist were to say to say that the classes P and NP are not
equal merely because we do not know that they are?