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I'm not trying to move the goal post. I'm only taking umbridge with the fact the previous poster said "No one has claimed that Oumuamua is likely an alien devic

by eggpy 8y ago

I'm not trying to move the goal post. I'm only taking umbridge with the fact the previous poster said "No one has claimed that Oumuamua is likely an alien device". The person interviewed in the very article this discussion is about seems to think that maybe it could be. So we are talking semantics between "likely" and "possibly".

figgis 8y ago
"likely", "maybe", "possibly" can all be used differently.. Especially if you take it out of context of the rest of the article. > Man that food sure looks tasty. > You haven't even tasted it! Why are you saying it's tasty? There are absolutely no claims that it's an alien artifact. What he is doing is providing reasons for why checking out similar solar visitors is something we need to do.
snikeris 8y ago
Here's my layman's understanding of the semantics between likely and possibly: Likely: greater than 50% probability Possibly: greater than 0% probability Saying something is likely is a pretty strong claim. You can make meaningful decisions based on such knowledge.