February 16, 2008
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Why Language Matters
[Warning: this is a seriously long and boring post, which only kinda sorta expresses my views on the topic. I take no responsibility if your brain a) explodes, b) atrophies and crawls out your ear, or c) goes into an entirely catatonic state like mine did while writing this. ]
I’ve come to suspect, after reading some of comments on one of TheTheologiansCafe‘s latest posts, that the majority of what we (the human race) actually spend our time debating and discussing, is semantics [the meaning and definition of a given word, phrase, or sentence] rather than the validity of any given or core argument. In the past, I’ve always thought that these kinds of arguments are silly. After all, who cares is something is labeled a theory or not? Everything in science is essentially a theory, verified by more or less evidence. Even the so called “laws” like Newton’s laws or the laws of gravity are NOT absolutes, (as has been shown by some fairly simple relativity experiments) so much as commonly used predictors for real world phenomenon.
The importance of arguments about language, and semantics in general finally struck me as I sat coding up some hooks for the Xanga credits system. I had been using numbers (rather arbitrarily) to designate the various kinds of errors that could occur in the system. Zero meant no errors, one meant not enough credits, two meant user did not exist etc… It occurred to me, that if someone were to go into my database and switch those numbers around, they could change the entire way that the credits system worked. Suddenly, people might be paid to give Minis and charged for leaving eProps. Or people without credits could purchase a Mini and instead give a random person Premium. Without changing a line of code, someone could change the entire underlying function of the program. (Some people might take this as a challenge – please don’t. Besides, the numbers have been changed to protect the innocent. ^_^)
So why does it matter whether we label evolution a theory, a scientific theory, or not at all? This same phenomenon can apply (on an admittedly much more complex level) to the rules and laws of civil society. Imagine society as a whole as a massive program, defined by its laws and rules. Now take a “law” and change the meaning of the words used to describe that law. You’ve just changed the meaning of that law. It is a scary thought actually. How much of the US Constitution is built on words that have changed their meaning over the last 200 years? Take a phrase, lets say…. oh I dunno “WE THE PEOPLE”. Seems
innocuous enough right? Now lets fudge the definition of people to
mean “white male land owners”. Hey look! Its pre-civil war America
again! (btw, I suspect this is why lawyers have such a booming profession)Ugh. Alright. I’m sick of this topic now. The next post will be something fun, and silly. With butterflies or something.
Comments (5)
good thing u put in a warning
[Warning: this is a seriously long and boring post, which only kinda
sorta expresses my views on the topic. I take no responsibility if
your brain a) explodes, b) atrophies and crawls out your ear, or c)
goes into an entirely catatonic state like mine did while writing this.
]
Those who want to start referring to evolution as a ‘law’ think that way because the general public doesn’t understand that a scientific idea backed by strong evidence can still be considered a ‘theory.’ Because of that, people have argued that evolution is “just a theory” and say that alternatives without the same kind of strong evidence backing them should also be taught in schools.
@patrick - yeah. Too bad human languages don’t require us to define namespaces. ^_^ Can you imagine a discussion that starts off with
#using Theory = Science.Terminology.Theory
?
:ssalien:PHILOSOPHY 101?
I take no responsibility if your brain thanx for you