Re: exhaustive definition in the life sciences - an oxymoron?


"feedbackdroids" <feedbackdroids@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1135633277.638038.44850@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> Glen M. Sizemore wrote:
>> "feedbackdroids" <feedbackdroids@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> news:1135619201.641437.113390@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> >
>> > Lester Zick wrote:
>> >
>> >>
>> >> No it means I prefer having an exhaustive definition for something
>> >> before I try to decide whether and how to scale it.
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> > Rhetorical question - how do you ever have an exhaustive definition for
>> > something that 40 different scientists have 40 different definitions
>> > for?
>>
>> First of all, you start to think that what you're "trying to define" is a
>> term that isn't useful scientifically.
>>
>
>
> Well, there's one of the 40 heard from.

So, you're saying that the view that a term is scientifically useless is the
same as trying to offer a scientific definition of it? And besides, there is
the view that meanings (closely associated with "definitions") are to be
found from examining usage. In this sense meanings (at least of colloquial
terms) are discovered, not invented.



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