Rolfe
Adult human female
There are moments when I wonder if we've all been the victims of an extraordinarily skilful piece of performance art here.
Differences in Sex Development (aka "intersex")
- Thread starter d4m10n
- Start date
bruto
Penultimate Amazing
I think one of the problems is that if we found some unnecessary term that would include those Steersman considers unsexed, the sexed would fall comfortably among them, and the distinctive word for the what he considers fully sexed would simply become a sub-category, as "fertile" or the like now is, and nothing actually would be accomplished. You're just moving the vocabulary sideways.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
It's a structural definition. We all know it's a structural definition. It's just for some reason the rest of us either don't understand or don't agree with, Steersman doesn't like structural definitions.
Even for the express purpose of categorizing things according to their structure, he objects. He thinks we are making a serious mistake by not taking function into account, when categorizing things according to their structure.
Even though we do it all the time, and it's both extremely convenient and obviously quite useful, he thinks function must be addressed in any kind of structural categorization.
Even though he can elucidate no practical application of his preferred approach, he insists it is the only correct approach. Even though it creates more confusion instead of less, he insists it must be the most useful approach. Even though it has no demonstrable use outside of narrow technical contexts, he insists it must be the general way in which everything is categorized by default.
Even though literally nobody anywhere actually does this, he believes everyone is doing it all the time. He also believes that they're not, and that they're wrong for not doing it.
So there's really nothing more to be said. From here on out, it's just going to be the same roundy-round, with Steersman deploying the same debunked and dismissed arguments, and everyone else deploying the same ineffectual rebuttals. Ineffectual not because they're flawed in any way, but because Steersman does not care about them.
Even for the express purpose of categorizing things according to their structure, he objects. He thinks we are making a serious mistake by not taking function into account, when categorizing things according to their structure.
Even though we do it all the time, and it's both extremely convenient and obviously quite useful, he thinks function must be addressed in any kind of structural categorization.
Even though he can elucidate no practical application of his preferred approach, he insists it is the only correct approach. Even though it creates more confusion instead of less, he insists it must be the most useful approach. Even though it has no demonstrable use outside of narrow technical contexts, he insists it must be the general way in which everything is categorized by default.
Even though literally nobody anywhere actually does this, he believes everyone is doing it all the time. He also believes that they're not, and that they're wrong for not doing it.
So there's really nothing more to be said. From here on out, it's just going to be the same roundy-round, with Steersman deploying the same debunked and dismissed arguments, and everyone else deploying the same ineffectual rebuttals. Ineffectual not because they're flawed in any way, but because Steersman does not care about them.
Agree totally.
Meanwhile, I still don't know what to call that critter up in the corner of the room that is a spider in every respect except that it lost a leg in its adventures. Spiders are octopedal.
Rolfe
Adult human female
Irrelevant. Point is that there ARE stipulative, prescriptive definitions - which even MW's definition of "by definition" underlines. Which have a great deal of utility. Which you refuse to address. Classy ...
Where, pray tell, do the definitions SAY anything about "offspring"?
https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990?login=false
I've looked really - really, really - closely, even between individual words, and don't see them anywhere ...
It was an argument from analogy. What self-serving horse crap.
MW's "definitions" are circular ones - useless, worse than useless. An outright joke. Proves MW to be not much better than Urban Dictionary - you going to use them as an "authority"?
Where exactly have they disclaimed that?
Maybe you missed my "magnum opus"?
https://medium.com/@steersmann/reality-and-illusion-being-vs-identifying-as-77f9618b17c7
If those definitions were adopted, how long do you think it would be before someone came up with a name for "adult human parit-ova"? And laws to segregate people based on membership in those new categories? And before there was a cachet attached to the word that the transloonies would seek to usurp?
That's just moving the goal-posts, not solving the problem.
"ve haf vays of making you tok" ... https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ve_haf_vays_of_making_you_talk
The issue is sloppy definitions, and unexamined assumptions. Often we can get by with them. But other times it's profoundly important to be precise - as when push comes to shove:
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/738123-what-gets-us-into-trouble-is-not-what-we-don-t
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7799868-if-you-wish-to-converse-with-me-define-your-terms
My objective - the method in my madness - is some good old-fashioned reductio ad absurdum:
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/arthur_conan_doyle_134512
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
Post #772
Stipulation binds only the stipulators, unless their interlocutors agree to their prescriptions. So far, no takers.
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Rolfe
Adult human female
Well, we're getting a 24-hour break anyway.
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
Seems like a good time for a
You might consider the differences between accidental and essential properties, even the first paragraph of the article:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/essential-accidental/
Having 8 legs qualifies as the former, being a member of the spider species, the latter:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species
So what? They all have definitions that are clearly prescriptive - by definition:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/by definition
As not everyone "agrees" to "prescriptions" about driving on the right side of the road, or about being law-abiding, or about paying their taxes ...But by "no takers", you mean apart from philosopher of science Paul Griffiths, biologists Parker (FRS) & Lehtonen, and the Journal of Molecular Human Biology? ...
I'm baaack! ... Did you miss me?
That an "opinion" is unpopular - or "offends" some people - is no guarantee that it isn't right or the most effective way forward.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/889423-he-who-dares-not-offend-cannot-be-honest
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
So...the lexicographers in question were explicitly disclaiming the idea that their book was prescriptive.
I'll take awkward analogies which totally don't work for $500, Alex.
Which of them claimed to be laying down prescriptive defintions?
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Rolfe
Adult human female
They laughed at Einstein. They also laughed at Coco the Clown.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Coco the Clown was a professional entertainer. They laughed because he was good at his job.
However.
They also laughed at Stephen Segal.
Rolfe
Adult human female
Fair point.
So ... Bill Clinton "explicitly disclaimed" that he had any "sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky" ...
Actions tend to speak louder than words ...
Close, no cigar. In fact, not even close.You seem rather desperate to deny that there are any prescriptive/intensional/by-definition definitions at all in play anywhere. Wonder why that might be.
Not sure you have any higher ground than the transloonies who want to re-define "woman" to include penis-havers. If there are no rules at all then everything is fair-game.
All of them in fact. Lehtonen (2017) for example:
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3063-1
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
None of them, in fact.
Don't pretend stipulation and prescription are equivalent, no one buys that ********.
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In your entirely unevidenced opinion.
All of them, in fact.
Don't pretend they're not:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prescribe
https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/prescribe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stipulative_definition
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
We can safely assume none of the authorities you've cited had the context of this particular discussion in mind.
You are welcome, of course, to stipulate your own meanings but don't expect anyone else to play along.
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You are welcome, of course, to assume any damn thing you want. But Griffiths and Parker (FRS) & Lehtonen and the Journals quoted clearly had the context of ALL of biology in mind - at least all of the biology that encompasses those species which are characterized by anisogamy. Which, if I'm not mistaken, includes the human one.
Not quite sure what else you had in mind with your original question - "what fraction ... are ... between male and female?" - but what you mean by "male" and "female" clearly ain't what mainstream biology means by those terms.
So you are quite welcome, of course, to stipulate your own meanings - concave and convex mating surfaces, perchance?
- but don't expect anyone else to play along. ...Let me know when y'all have the same number and type of authoritative sources which endorse the quite unscientific schlock that you've all been peddling. Somewhat apropos of which, y'all may - or may not - find some amusement in a "conversation" I had with Heather Heying - she of the imperious triumvirate with Emma Hilton & Colin Wright - where she gamely responded to my challenge of that schlock of theirs, only to turn turtle, abandon the field unbloodied, and retreat into her own version of "the Bible tells me so"
:https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/on-fraud-audio-edition/comment/8604143