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**tipoketpu** · 09-01-2012, 12:48 PM

The science community as I understand it always argues against the "la la" relativism that goes against the systematic reason, dialectics and materialism that is at the core of all science.

Could you rephrase that in a way I can understand? I never heard of "la la" relativism.

There is a consistent method to science, a validity, reliability and ability to reproduce results. Then now you agree with the concept of race? There is valid, reliable DNA research which can be used to distinguish members of differing races with reproducable results.

Gravity is a significant, important concept with a definite meaning. Since we don't really know why gravity exists or what it exactly is, what is the definite meaning? The scientifical concept of gravity also has no importance for my dinner. I'd recognise that my slice of bread falls to the ground without any scientific background.

Relativity- very important. Yes, I see that. The faster I eat, the older I get. Or did I get that wrong?

The atomic theory, laws of thermodynamics, evolution, the carbon cycle and global warming are all significant, important and have a distict meaning. Atomic theory: -yes, obviously without this theory I wouldn't be able to put butter on my bread (BTW, since you talked about antiquated concepts, this one is quite old)
Thermodynamics: -very important to know that no energy is lost while I'm chewing
Evolution: -yo, absolutely necessary to know that the pork I eat comes from a pig that evolved from another form of pig that evolved from some other animal, which again evolved... Couldn't live without that.
Carbon cycle: -also good to know that the salad I have cannot reduce the atmosphere's carbon dioxide anymore
Global warming: -the most important of them all, yeah, how could I eat anything if I didn't know that whenever I eat beans I will enhance global warming through the methane I produce while digesting them.

BTW, thermodynamics is nice example how you misunderstand science. Science often works with models, IE idealised versions of reality. For thermodynamics this means that scientists often deal with concepts that don't exist as such in reality, eg. isolated systems. Doesn't that mean according to your definition that it isn't scientific? Or at least less scientific than race, since there are actually people who show 100% markers of certain races, while there isn't a 100% isolated system?

Sorry, but you couldn't convince me.

And I have not asked for any social/philosophical meaning- just for a basic pedestrian run of the mill daily use type meaning. When have I ever cared about philosophy? You weren't very clear before. You kept on talking about some alleged meaning that should be there, even after (IIRC) I already stated that the meaning is relative. It's relevant for certain areas of biological/medical/etc. research, but else?

Who is this PC faction and how do they exert pressure? I'm not in the US, but what I read about this is that your funding may be cancelled if you don't publish according to certain political standards.

Who cares if anything or anyone is politically correct? Publishers obviously do. Certain faculties probably do, too.

Look at Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern and all the other talk jockies. If they went PC they'd be off the air. Which science are they involved in?

Books like the Bell Curve sell millions of copies on the basis that they offend many. Nice example, esp. since the authors had great trouble because of this. Pictured as racists by the PC faction, IIRC, they even got bomb threats. How politically correct!
Maybe this particular book sold millions, but less populistic (IIRC, this one was supported by some right-wing institution) scientific publications are often refused by major publishers because of PC. It's a hard life if you have to publish in peer-reviewed magazines in order to get grants/funding, but your articles are refused for reasons of PC.

An atom an atom. Is it? There are some 112 different atoms. Didn't you say something about when the number of differentiation is 60 it becomes meaningless? What's more, there is even differentiation in one element, the atom may have varying numbers of neutrons.

the use of a pre-scientific taxonomy to classify homo sapiens that is not universally agreed upon by the majority of people in the field lacks meaning. "universally agreed upon by the majority" sounds interesting. Which probably makes UG a non-scientific concept as well.
Talking of pre-scientific taxonomy: When did science start?
Why should certain terms be deleted from language only because some idiots misused them? Wouldn't we have to delete some 90% (or more) if we did this consequently?

Persians [...] don't consider themselves either mongoloid or caucasoid. Even if that were true, so what? How many Persians are biologists?
But, anyway, could you please enlighten me as to what Persians do consider themselves (with source, if possible)?

For a term to have meaning it must have a shared denotation (and connotation) for both the sender and reciever. Race seems to be lacking in this parameter. For an English major, this is a quite poor argumentation. How many scientific terms are widely understood in the general population? Are all those not understood by an arbitrarily asked housewife invalid?

I'm fairly certain that every isolated population with sufficient language found a good way of classifying outsiders like this, but is that science? Outsiders? Then the Europeans who did the classification were neither caucasoid, negroid, mongoloid or altschicht? Were they ETs?

You pick the eurpean terminology because you are european? Is that science? Nope, it's language. I'm German talking English to you, hence I use the English & where the English is unknown German terminology. I could use the Chinese one, but I doubt you would understand that.

if it is merely a sorting by superficial appearance. It is quite obvious that you don't want to understand. Appearance is only a minor marker of race.

if few can agree on the terminology Why should eg. Chinese adopt English terminology? They sometimes do, but to force them is quite imperialist.

More of my notorious comparisons drawn from linguistics: The terms language & dialect are fallen in disregard in parts of the linguistic community & replaced by Ausbausprache/Abstandsprache/Dachsprache. Now does that mean that language & dialect don't exist? That they aren't scientific concepts? Since dialect (1577) & language (1290) date from pre-scientific times, aren't they acc. to you invalid, anyway?

09-01-2012, 12:48 PM	#27
tipoketpu Join Date Nov 2005 Posts 435 Senior Member	The science community as I understand it always argues against the "la la" relativism that goes against the systematic reason, dialectics and materialism that is at the core of all science. Could you rephrase that in a way I can understand? I never heard of "la la" relativism. There is a consistent method to science, a validity, reliability and ability to reproduce results. Then now you agree with the concept of race? There is valid, reliable DNA research which can be used to distinguish members of differing races with reproducable results. Gravity is a significant, important concept with a definite meaning. Since we don't really know why gravity exists or what it exactly is, what is the definite meaning? The scientifical concept of gravity also has no importance for my dinner. I'd recognise that my slice of bread falls to the ground without any scientific background. Relativity- very important. Yes, I see that. The faster I eat, the older I get. Or did I get that wrong? The atomic theory, laws of thermodynamics, evolution, the carbon cycle and global warming are all significant, important and have a distict meaning. Atomic theory: -yes, obviously without this theory I wouldn't be able to put butter on my bread (BTW, since you talked about antiquated concepts, this one is quite old) Thermodynamics: -very important to know that no energy is lost while I'm chewing Evolution: -yo, absolutely necessary to know that the pork I eat comes from a pig that evolved from another form of pig that evolved from some other animal, which again evolved... Couldn't live without that. Carbon cycle: -also good to know that the salad I have cannot reduce the atmosphere's carbon dioxide anymore Global warming: -the most important of them all, yeah, how could I eat anything if I didn't know that whenever I eat beans I will enhance global warming through the methane I produce while digesting them. BTW, thermodynamics is nice example how you misunderstand science. Science often works with models, IE idealised versions of reality. For thermodynamics this means that scientists often deal with concepts that don't exist as such in reality, eg. isolated systems. Doesn't that mean according to your definition that it isn't scientific? Or at least less scientific than race, since there are actually people who show 100% markers of certain races, while there isn't a 100% isolated system? Sorry, but you couldn't convince me. And I have not asked for any social/philosophical meaning- just for a basic pedestrian run of the mill daily use type meaning. When have I ever cared about philosophy? You weren't very clear before. You kept on talking about some alleged meaning that should be there, even after (IIRC) I already stated that the meaning is relative. It's relevant for certain areas of biological/medical/etc. research, but else? Who is this PC faction and how do they exert pressure? I'm not in the US, but what I read about this is that your funding may be cancelled if you don't publish according to certain political standards. Who cares if anything or anyone is politically correct? Publishers obviously do. Certain faculties probably do, too. Look at Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern and all the other talk jockies. If they went PC they'd be off the air. Which science are they involved in? Books like the Bell Curve sell millions of copies on the basis that they offend many. Nice example, esp. since the authors had great trouble because of this. Pictured as racists by the PC faction, IIRC, they even got bomb threats. How politically correct! Maybe this particular book sold millions, but less populistic (IIRC, this one was supported by some right-wing institution) scientific publications are often refused by major publishers because of PC. It's a hard life if you have to publish in peer-reviewed magazines in order to get grants/funding, but your articles are refused for reasons of PC. An atom an atom. Is it? There are some 112 different atoms. Didn't you say something about when the number of differentiation is 60 it becomes meaningless? What's more, there is even differentiation in one element, the atom may have varying numbers of neutrons. the use of a pre-scientific taxonomy to classify homo sapiens that is not universally agreed upon by the majority of people in the field lacks meaning. "universally agreed upon by the majority" sounds interesting. Which probably makes UG a non-scientific concept as well. Talking of pre-scientific taxonomy: When did science start? Why should certain terms be deleted from language only because some idiots misused them? Wouldn't we have to delete some 90% (or more) if we did this consequently? Persians [...] don't consider themselves either mongoloid or caucasoid. Even if that were true, so what? How many Persians are biologists? But, anyway, could you please enlighten me as to what Persians do consider themselves (with source, if possible)? For a term to have meaning it must have a shared denotation (and connotation) for both the sender and reciever. Race seems to be lacking in this parameter. For an English major, this is a quite poor argumentation. How many scientific terms are widely understood in the general population? Are all those not understood by an arbitrarily asked housewife invalid? I'm fairly certain that every isolated population with sufficient language found a good way of classifying outsiders like this, but is that science? Outsiders? Then the Europeans who did the classification were neither caucasoid, negroid, mongoloid or altschicht? Were they ETs? You pick the eurpean terminology because you are european? Is that science? Nope, it's language. I'm German talking English to you, hence I use the English & where the English is unknown German terminology. I could use the Chinese one, but I doubt you would understand that. if it is merely a sorting by superficial appearance. It is quite obvious that you don't want to understand. Appearance is only a minor marker of race. if few can agree on the terminology Why should eg. Chinese adopt English terminology? They sometimes do, but to force them is quite imperialist. More of my notorious comparisons drawn from linguistics: The terms language & dialect are fallen in disregard in parts of the linguistic community & replaced by Ausbausprache/Abstandsprache/Dachsprache. Now does that mean that language & dialect don't exist? That they aren't scientific concepts? Since dialect (1577) & language (1290) date from pre-scientific times, aren't they acc. to you invalid, anyway?
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