{"id":2005,"date":"2009-08-07T02:28:46","date_gmt":"2009-08-07T10:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=2005"},"modified":"2023-08-28T01:19:19","modified_gmt":"2023-08-28T08:19:19","slug":"all-most-some","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=2005","title":{"rendered":"All? Most? Some?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When you read or hear some writer or speaker &mdash; especially a journalist or a politician &mdash; asserting<\/p> <blockquote>Economists say <var>X<\/var>.<\/blockquote> <p>ask yourself two questions: <ul><li>Is this <em>all<\/em> economists or <em>most<\/em> economists or just <em>some<\/em> economists?<\/li><li>Why has this writer or speaker chosen not to specify whether it is <em>some<\/em>, <em>most<\/em>, or <em>all<\/em>?<\/li><\/ul><\/p> <p>The same point applies to other areas of expertise.  A bald <q>climatologists<\/q> or <q>scientists<\/q> or <q>health experts<\/q> or <q>historians<\/q> or <q>philosophers<\/q> should get one to ask the analogous questions.  But, right now, I am provoked by yet another article about what <q>economists<\/q> say.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you read or hear some writer or speaker &mdash; especially a journalist or a politician &mdash; asserting Economists say X. ask yourself two questions: Is this all economists or most economists or just some economists?Why has this writer or speaker chosen not to specify whether it is some, most, or all? The same point [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,117,36,318,9,104,4],"tags":[404,182,383,405],"class_list":["post-2005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-communication","category-economics","category-ethics-philosophy","category-ideology-philosophy","category-news","category-public","tag-eristicism","tag-journalism","tag-rhetoric","tag-sophistry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2005"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12147,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2005\/revisions\/12147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}