Dear Steve, I can understand you don't like my question. Some of the answers I received prove that other mathematicians I respect approve of it, have thought about, and have given partial answers to it. If you have any objections, take a stand and give MATHEMATICAL reasons for your objections. All you say is;

I'm saying the same can happen in mathematics. Prove that it DID happen in my question!

By the way, I'm no zoologist but, by fishing through your mails, I found a big gap in your refutation. Neither in your mails nor in Fred's did I find any reference to the octopus. If there is any good reason for this omission, mathematical OR zoological, please make it public and justify it. All the best, Jean Le 14 févr. 17 à 09:48, Steve Vickers a écrit :

Dear Fred,

A good answer, but my point was that it was a bad question.

You see this once you start pressing at the details. Are seals and turtles fish? No, but on your definition it depends on whether flippers count as legs or not. What about sea snakes? Obviously not - they're snakes, that just happen to live in the sea. But then eels do seem a bit more fishy.

A meticulous zoologist would start piling on the subclauses to pin it down more precisely, but we know that that does not actually refine our understanding of zoology. It just amplifies the misconceptions underlying the original question.

All the best,

Steve.

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