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Scoring points, or not. Humans are in fact technically animals. To write about a scientific endeavor in nontechnical/ambiguous or inaccurate terms is disingenuo

Scoring points, or not. Humans are in fact technically animals. To write about a scientific endeavor in nontechnical/ambiguous or inaccurate terms is disingenuous or worse, negligent. By the way, I believe you were attempting to 'score points' by pointing out the op's intentionality.

lliamander 10y ago
> To write about a scientific endeavor in nontechnical/ambiguous or inaccurate terms is disingenuous or worse, negligent. No, it is not. Communication is not about being correct, but about being correctly understood. Also, if we are being technical, "animal" was a word used prior to the development of modern biology, and it means what the article means when it uses the word, i.e. non-human animals. The fact that scientists decided to reuse the same word to mean something slightly different is if anything a flaw on their part. They could have come up with a more precise term to disambiguate (e.g. "neural mobile multi-cellular organisms (NMMCOs)" or some such) but they didn't. As this article is aimed at the lay-person, it is perfectly reasonable (I would say obligatory) to use the meaning that is expected by that audience. The headline as it shows up in HN was renamed to "In Search for Cures, Scientists Create Multispecies Embryos". This is a ridiculous act of pedantry that completely obscures the rather important fact that one of those species in "multispecies" is human.
- headShrinker 10y ago
  > The fact that scientists decided to reuse the same word to mean something slightly different This is like saying we should have used different terminology when Copernicus published his work on planetary bodies. Or science should have used a different name for Earth when it proven that our planet round? No, if people are inaccurate, you don't keep on using old outdated definitions and invent new nouns for the new meanings. You update the old inaccurate definitions. People used to think humans were distinctly different than anything else on the planet. We are not and we are not special. We are animals. At the root of this debate is the fact that this idea deeply offends a select few, mostly religious zealots . The same groups were offended that the Earth was still Earth even though it's round. Animals are still animals even thought people are animals too. Gravity is still gravity as our definition of what it is and how it works changes.
  - lliamander 10y ago
    >This is like saying we should have used different terminology when Copernicus published his work on planetary bodies. But "chemistry" was coined to distinguish from alchemy. Regarding humans as animals, I should probably have stated more accurately that since at least the time of Aristotle, the term animal has also been applied to humans (i.e. "man is the rational animal"). Animal, in this context, refers to anything that is animate (moves around, eats, etc.). However, we often (primarily) use the term to refers to those organisms which are merely animate, as opposed to those that also possess sentience (humans). > We are not [distinct] and we are not special. Empirically we are distinct. Our lack of specialness remains unproven. > We are animals. Both in the sense of biological taxonomy and that we have an animus, that is true. That does not entail your previous statement. It's also still perfectly correct to use the term to refer non-human animals. > The same groups were offended that the Earth was still Earth even though it's round. What groups are these, specifically? As far as I know, these people never existed except in the modern imagination. The West has been aware of the Earth's roundness since BC. It is a central aspect of the Ptolemaic cosmology.

lliamander 10y ago

> To write about a scientific endeavor in nontechnical/ambiguous or inaccurate terms is disingenuous or worse, negligent. No, it is not. Communication is not about being correct, but about being correctly understood. Also, if we are being technical, "animal" was a word used prior to the development of modern biology, and it means what the article means when it uses the word, i.e. non-human animals. The fact that scientists decided to reuse the same word to mean something slightly different is if anything a flaw on their part. They could have come up with a more precise term to disambiguate (e.g. "neural mobile multi-cellular organisms (NMMCOs)" or some such) but they didn't. As this article is aimed at the lay-person, it is perfectly reasonable (I would say obligatory) to use the meaning that is expected by that audience. The headline as it shows up in HN was renamed to "In Search for Cures, Scientists Create Multispecies Embryos". This is a ridiculous act of pedantry that completely obscures the rather important fact that one of those species in "multispecies" is human.

headShrinker 10y ago
> The fact that scientists decided to reuse the same word to mean something slightly different This is like saying we should have used different terminology when Copernicus published his work on planetary bodies. Or science should have used a different name for Earth when it proven that our planet round? No, if people are inaccurate, you don't keep on using old outdated definitions and invent new nouns for the new meanings. You update the old inaccurate definitions. People used to think humans were distinctly different than anything else on the planet. We are not and we are not special. We are animals. At the root of this debate is the fact that this idea deeply offends a select few, mostly religious zealots . The same groups were offended that the Earth was still Earth even though it's round. Animals are still animals even thought people are animals too. Gravity is still gravity as our definition of what it is and how it works changes.
- lliamander 10y ago
  >This is like saying we should have used different terminology when Copernicus published his work on planetary bodies. But "chemistry" was coined to distinguish from alchemy. Regarding humans as animals, I should probably have stated more accurately that since at least the time of Aristotle, the term animal has also been applied to humans (i.e. "man is the rational animal"). Animal, in this context, refers to anything that is animate (moves around, eats, etc.). However, we often (primarily) use the term to refers to those organisms which are merely animate, as opposed to those that also possess sentience (humans). > We are not [distinct] and we are not special. Empirically we are distinct. Our lack of specialness remains unproven. > We are animals. Both in the sense of biological taxonomy and that we have an animus, that is true. That does not entail your previous statement. It's also still perfectly correct to use the term to refer non-human animals. > The same groups were offended that the Earth was still Earth even though it's round. What groups are these, specifically? As far as I know, these people never existed except in the modern imagination. The West has been aware of the Earth's roundness since BC. It is a central aspect of the Ptolemaic cosmology.