Re: Common ancestor between man and ape
- From: John Harshman <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 21 May 2007 15:46:41 -0700
UC wrote:
On May 20, 11:22 am, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
UC wrote:
On May 19, 7:51 pm, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
UC wrote:
On May 18, 9:22 pm, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
UC wrote:
On May 18, 7:35 pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 18 May 2007 05:58:01 -0700, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by UC <uraniumcommit...@xxxxxxxxx>:
On May 17, 10:00 pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 17 May 2007 14:18:49 -0700, the following appeared in
talk.origins, posted by UC <uraniumcommit...@xxxxxxxxx>:
<snip>
...The difference is the NAME,
stupid! I'M TALKING ABOUT THE NAME!
Unfortunately for your argument, neither scientific
knowledge nor reality is constrained by the names given in
common usage. You are falsely equating what something *is*
with the common term for that thing. To Sam Clemens' classic
"If we call the tail a leg, how many legs would a dog
have?", your response would undoubtedly be "five".
Yes, of course. What else could it be?
Uh, Sparky? Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one. Are
you *really* this dense?
If it called a leg, then it is a 'leg'. In many languages the same
term is applied to what are called by different names in others. For
instance, in English we distinguish between a 'club' and a 'racquet'.
In German, the word 'Schläger' is used for both:
Tennisschläger, Golfschläger
http://www.golfkurse.com/golfschlaeger.htm
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennisschl%C3%A4ger
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golfschl%C3%A4ger
In Italian, the same word is used for 'rat' and 'mouse'.
In Italian, the same word is used for 'niece', 'nephew' and
'grandchild'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untranslatability
Odd as it is, I have to agree with UC here. Words mean what we agree
they mean. If we all agreed to call a tail a leg, then a tail would be a
leg. Of course the meaning of "leg" would have changed. Not all legs
would have knees any more, or be useful for walking.
The weird thing is that UC has from time to time argued the opposite --
that words can't change meanings.
I'm not sure I have said that. Of course words can change meaning. But
there is a a difference between a word gradually acquiring new
meanings over centuries on the one hand, and an individual or group
arguing that it SHOULD mean something that it does not NOW generally
mean (determinable by consulting reference books), and using it as if
the change had already occurred.
Then you are incredibly naive about how change does occur.
How so?
How so in the ways I have already explained, and you ignored, below.
[snip irrelevant riff on "bomb"]
But a word such as 'horse' cannot undergo such technological
influence. It simply refers to a sort of animal. Same with 'ape'.
Who says that changes are limited to technological influence?
I didn't say it was. I pointed out that technological influence is
impossible in the case of animals. Clear enough?
The only thing that's unclear is why you brought it up at all, since it
seems to be irrelevant.
Consider
the English word "bird", which apparently meant, originally, a young
chicken and was extended to its current meaning, replacing the previous
word "fowl" (or fogel, or fugel, if you prefer), which now has a much
more limited meaning. No technology involved.
Local terms for animals sometimes become obsolete when a country is
conquered. English has a rather unusual history.
Not so unusual. Nor does the replacement have anything, apparently, to
do with the Norman conquest, since it happened hundreds of years later.
Chaucer, for example, still uses "fowles" to refer to all birds. You are
grasping at straws (2 of them so far) to retain your odd notion.
It occurs by
people using words in new contexts with new meanings. There does indeed
have to be a first use. And you also reject common usage if for some
reason you don't like it -- as, for example, calling Archaeopteryx a
bird, which is nearly universal except for you. Like I said, consistency
is not one of your goals.
He says, for example, that the word
"bird" can't be used for any species that was extinct before the word
was first applied.
Not exactly my position. I was discussing trying to force more
primitive, earlier creatures into modern categaories. The farther back
in time you go, the less defined each lineage becomes, and the problem
of calling any given creature by the name of its remote descendant
should be obvious.
If you think that's what you've been saying, then you have a serious
misunderstanding of avian phylogeny, and a complete inability to
comprehend the explanations of those who do.
But let me try again. You have claimed, on occasion, many different
cutoff's for "bird". Sometimes you have used the K/T boundary, which is
entirely arbitrary. Other times you have claimed that nothing that went
extinct before the English language existed can be called a bird. But in
fact there are Cretaceous avians that are members of modern orders, and
some Miocene avians are members of modern genera. There is nothing to
distinguish them from extant birds except that they are extinct. Hence
the notion that you would not consider dodos or passenger pigeons to be
birds. You are constantly scrambling to rescue your absurd linguistic
judgments, and you are forced to make increasingly silly pronouncements
to do so.
I think he makes it all up as he goes along, and
consistency is not one of his concerns.
But he's still right about this bit, at the moment.
Thank you. I don't see how anyone could argue differently.
So if we call Archaeopteryx a bird, it's a bird?
Not the same sort of thing.
Exactly the same sort of thing.
There is no common name for Archaeopteryx . It exists only as a
fossil.
More irrelevancies. There are plenty of living birds with no common
names, and we still call them birds. There are plenty of birds that are
known only from fossils, but we still call them birds.
There is no human experince even remortely
possible with this animal.
Of course there is. We learn about it from its preserved remains.
I mean as a living species, such as the horsehoe crab.
And why is it relevant that we experience it as a living species?
You
don't need a live animal. Many species of bird were, for example, named
exclusively from preserved skins. That's why birds of paradise were
originally thought (by their describers) to lack legs. Yet they were
also known to be birds, based on their anatomy.
I'm against forcing it into the name
'bird'.
What you're against hardly seems relevant in the face of general usage.
There is no "general usage" in the case of the Archaeopteryx.
Of course there is. Archaeopteryx is one of the best-known fossils.
Everyone who talks about it, not just scientists, calls it a bird, with
the exception of a few specialists who have other ideas -- exactly the
reverse of your distinction between vernacular and specialized language.
This is another example of your inconsistency. You claim to be defending
linguistic practice, yet you demand your own idiosyncratic usages be
accepted in place of customary ones.
[snip]
.
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