If you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras

Robert Borski · 05 Jun 1998, 14:52 · from urth-v0012.mbox · original

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From: "Robert Borski" <rborski at coredcs.com>
Subject: (urth) If you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 14:52:43
Message-ID: <urth-v0012-0089 at digest.urth.net>
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To my esteemed colleague from across the Pond, re our latest 5H debate:

All right, Tony, you win.

Millions of years ago, pre-Flintstones spacecraft traveled to Sainte Anne,
where the spacehumans subsequently forgot the technical skills required to
ferry them back across 20 light years of space, and subsequently
retrogressed to the level of savages.

Meanwhile, back here on Earth, as hundreds of thousands of lifeforms
thrived, then died off (hello dinosaurs, hello neanderthals, hello dodo),
Homo sapiens pangalacticus re-evolved the necessary skills to make the
transit back across the leagues of space to Sainte Anne, where the natives
have never changed over a similar span of millennia, and a single solitary
viable hybrid is produced between Annese and human.

This is much easier to accept and scientifically valid that the notion the
parents of Victor Roy Trenchard are simply both abos.

Logic rules, Mr. Ellis.

I stand in your shadow.

Robert Borski (who although he may vehemently disagree with TE still
enormously respects his opinion because at least he's read FIFTH HEAD and
can marshal his arguments from text. We simply have alternate takes on the
same book, eh?)

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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