14 ms·

"one of the top regional functionaries stated that "Lenin could not have been a mushroom" because "a mammal can not be a plant."" I love the the logic here. As

"one of the top regional functionaries stated that "Lenin could not have been a mushroom" because "a mammal can not be a plant."" I love the the logic here. As though "Lenin was a bottle nose dolphin" would have been more plausible. Also did the Soviets have the same taxonomy as the west, meaning mushrooms would be fungi and not plants?

ajuc 10y ago
It's great but it's not a proof, because a mushroom isn't a plant.
guard-of-terra 10y ago
Functionaries were as clueless about taxonomy as about anything else.
oblio 10y ago
Go out on the street and ask 3-4 regular passers-by what "taxonomy" means :)
- jerf 10y ago
  I think the question is about the cultural taxonomy, not the scientific one. For instance, culturally, tomatoes are often a vegetable in the United States, but botanically they're a berry and therefore a fruit. A culture could either treat fungus as in the "plant" category or not in the "plant" category and both would be culturally reasonable. (It's also an error to claim that it's "wrong" to call a tomato a vegetable. Words have different meanings, and you're in for a lifetime of frustration if you go around insisting that cultures are only permitted to use all words in exactly the way that scientists use them.)
  - trentlott 10y ago
    Fruit/berry are biological distinctions, I think, whereas vegetable-ness is mostly culinary. I recall reading an argument refuting this, but it didn't alter my way of differentiating.
    - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
      Hm no. Ask your waitress for a bowl of oatmeal with berries and they bring tomatoes, you will be upset.
      - Declanomous 10y ago
        The issue is domain-specific definitions. It causes a lot of misunderstandings. A common issue is the meaning of the word theory.
      - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
        Yes. Oatmeal is culinary. What's your point?
        JoeAltmaier 10y ago
        Read it again. Fruit/berry was proposed as not being culinary.
        PhasmaFelis 10y ago
        In context, it was clearly saying that a tomato is a fruit/berry in a biological context, but a vegetable in a culinary one. That doesn't mean that those words don't also have different meanings in other contexts.
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        > Ask your waitress for a bowl of oatmeal with berries and they bring tomatoes, you will be upset. Right, because if you ask your waitress, you expect culinary rather than biological definitions to be used. Then again, you'd usually ask for something more specific than "berries".
      - c22 10y ago
        You'd probably be upset if they brought raw cranberries or poisonous juniper berries too.
    - 10y ago
  - steve-howard 10y ago
    Just as coffee "beans" are actually seeds. This information is of no use to the vast majority of people unless one finds it enjoyable to be pedantic, but it is a neat bit of trivia all the same.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > Just as coffee "beans" are actually seeds. All beans are seeds. Except "sea beans", which aren't beans, either.
      - Piskvorrr 10y ago
        And NetBeans.
sakri 10y ago
This would have been an excellent opportunity for a dad joke about Lenin and the Vodka bottle had he not prohibited alcohol in 1917.
pavelrub 10y ago
There is nothing wrong with the logic here. It doesn't mean that "Lenin was a bottle nose dolphin" would have been more plausible - it simply means that a different argument would be used to refute it (such as: "a human can't be a dolphin").
- xg15 10y ago
  The logic is correct, but directs the attention of the audience to an irrelevant point. (Similar to a magician performing a trick) E.g., imagine there actually existed some little-known mammal/plant hybrids. The "historian" could have presented one and dramatically refuted the argument. Of course that wouldn't actually help in proving Lenin was a mushroom, but it would let that proposition appear more credible.
  - pavelrub 10y ago
    Well yes, if there were actual mammal-mushrooms then it would make the proposition more credible, and rightly so. The whole reason why "a mammal can not be a plant" argument works is because it assumes we know that there is no such thing as a plant-mammal. If you see a helicopter in the sky, but somehow believe it is an airplane, saying "it can't be an airplane because it has no wings" is perfectly valid. It doesn't somehow make the claim "a bird is an airplane because they both have wings" more plausible - it just means that a different argument is needed to refute it.
    - xg15 10y ago
      Well yes, if there were actual mammal-mushrooms then it would make the proposition more credible, and rightly so. Well, I think, even if that were the case, it would still be a logical fallacy, because the fact that a mammal could be a plant/fungus/whatever doesn't tell anything about whether that particular mammal is. All it does is to increase the "refuted counter arguments" score which gives it the illusion of credibility. So the whole "can a mammal be..." debate would be a red herring. You could pull the same trick with the airplane example: "What do you mean, this thing can't be a plane because a plane needs wings? The rocket plane XYZ-34 doesn't have wings either." (while ignoring the fact that the helicopter you're watching doesn't look anything like that rocket plane)
Alex3917 10y ago
Fungi were plants in the west too until the early 80s. Anyone old enough to be making a speech on TV in 1991 would have probably thought of them as plants regardless of their country.
- dchest 10y ago
  Russian Wikipedia has this quote from the author of hoax: "I wrote a rebuttal to this statement [that a mammal can not be a plant] in 'Smena' newspaper. In fact, we spent the whole hour proving that fungi was a separate kingdom from plants and animals."
- Bromskloss 10y ago
  > Fungi were plants in the west too until the early 80s. What brought about the change? Was some difference between them discovered or was it a matter of deciding that it would be more convenient to give them separate names?
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Iirc, its because of their genome.
  - dzmien 10y ago
    I think it has to do with the evolution of our scientific taxonomic system. It was realized that although fungi seem like plants in many ways, they have certain differences which warrant their separation from plants, phylogenically and morphologically.
  - mdemare 10y ago
    Fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opisthokont https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opisthokont
    - gpvos 10y ago
      Under "History" in that article: >The close relationship between animals and fungi was suggested by Thomas Cavalier-Smith in 1987 >Early phylogenies placed fungi near the plants [...]
radiorental 10y ago
There was a deliberate suppression of entire fields of research & education from the 1930's onwards. Biology being one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressed_research_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressed_research_in_the_Sov...
- Zuider 10y ago
  Wikipedia does not note the real reason for the Soviet rejection of genetics. Darwin's theory of evolution, being based on random mutation and natural selection was seen as contradicting the theory of dialectical materialism which assumed a deterministic ontogeny culminating in a fixed and inevitable end point. The rejection was nothing to do with Nazis and priests.
tomkat0789 10y ago
I guess the Soviet government was known for such "logic". A dissident once gave a speech at my university and told us this joke: After the Americans landed on the Moon, the Soviet Politburo went to the cosmonauts saying, "Russia can do better than the Americans, so we are going to send you to the Sun." "Don't send us to the Sun," they said, "We'll burn up and die!" The politicians replied, "You think we are stupid in the Politburo? We will send you at night."
- dumbfounder 10y ago
  I thought you were going to say something like "Russia must do an even better job of being the first to the moon!"
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
I feel like he's more pointing out the fundamental absurdity of the whole thing than trying to make an ironclad logical assertion.
Zuider 10y ago
How is the claim that "Lenin was a bottle nose dolphin" more plausible, comrade? If a mammal cannot be something simple like a plant, then surely it is even less likely that a mammal can be a fish!

ajuc 10y ago

It's great but it's not a proof, because a mushroom isn't a plant.

guard-of-terra 10y ago

Functionaries were as clueless about taxonomy as about anything else.

oblio 10y ago

Go out on the street and ask 3-4 regular passers-by what "taxonomy" means :)

jerf 10y ago
I think the question is about the cultural taxonomy, not the scientific one. For instance, culturally, tomatoes are often a vegetable in the United States, but botanically they're a berry and therefore a fruit. A culture could either treat fungus as in the "plant" category or not in the "plant" category and both would be culturally reasonable. (It's also an error to claim that it's "wrong" to call a tomato a vegetable. Words have different meanings, and you're in for a lifetime of frustration if you go around insisting that cultures are only permitted to use all words in exactly the way that scientists use them.)
- trentlott 10y ago
  Fruit/berry are biological distinctions, I think, whereas vegetable-ness is mostly culinary. I recall reading an argument refuting this, but it didn't alter my way of differentiating.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    Hm no. Ask your waitress for a bowl of oatmeal with berries and they bring tomatoes, you will be upset.
    - Declanomous 10y ago
      The issue is domain-specific definitions. It causes a lot of misunderstandings. A common issue is the meaning of the word theory.
    - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
      Yes. Oatmeal is culinary. What's your point?
      - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
        Read it again. Fruit/berry was proposed as not being culinary.
        PhasmaFelis 10y ago
        In context, it was clearly saying that a tomato is a fruit/berry in a biological context, but a vegetable in a culinary one. That doesn't mean that those words don't also have different meanings in other contexts.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > Ask your waitress for a bowl of oatmeal with berries and they bring tomatoes, you will be upset. Right, because if you ask your waitress, you expect culinary rather than biological definitions to be used. Then again, you'd usually ask for something more specific than "berries".
    - c22 10y ago
      You'd probably be upset if they brought raw cranberries or poisonous juniper berries too.
  - 10y ago
- steve-howard 10y ago
  Just as coffee "beans" are actually seeds. This information is of no use to the vast majority of people unless one finds it enjoyable to be pedantic, but it is a neat bit of trivia all the same.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Just as coffee "beans" are actually seeds. All beans are seeds. Except "sea beans", which aren't beans, either.
    - Piskvorrr 10y ago
      And NetBeans.

sakri 10y ago

This would have been an excellent opportunity for a dad joke about Lenin and the Vodka bottle had he not prohibited alcohol in 1917.

pavelrub 10y ago

There is nothing wrong with the logic here. It doesn't mean that "Lenin was a bottle nose dolphin" would have been more plausible - it simply means that a different argument would be used to refute it (such as: "a human can't be a dolphin").

xg15 10y ago
The logic is correct, but directs the attention of the audience to an irrelevant point. (Similar to a magician performing a trick) E.g., imagine there actually existed some little-known mammal/plant hybrids. The "historian" could have presented one and dramatically refuted the argument. Of course that wouldn't actually help in proving Lenin was a mushroom, but it would let that proposition appear more credible.
- pavelrub 10y ago
  Well yes, if there were actual mammal-mushrooms then it would make the proposition more credible, and rightly so. The whole reason why "a mammal can not be a plant" argument works is because it assumes we know that there is no such thing as a plant-mammal. If you see a helicopter in the sky, but somehow believe it is an airplane, saying "it can't be an airplane because it has no wings" is perfectly valid. It doesn't somehow make the claim "a bird is an airplane because they both have wings" more plausible - it just means that a different argument is needed to refute it.
  - xg15 10y ago
    Well yes, if there were actual mammal-mushrooms then it would make the proposition more credible, and rightly so. Well, I think, even if that were the case, it would still be a logical fallacy, because the fact that a mammal could be a plant/fungus/whatever doesn't tell anything about whether that particular mammal is. All it does is to increase the "refuted counter arguments" score which gives it the illusion of credibility. So the whole "can a mammal be..." debate would be a red herring. You could pull the same trick with the airplane example: "What do you mean, this thing can't be a plane because a plane needs wings? The rocket plane XYZ-34 doesn't have wings either." (while ignoring the fact that the helicopter you're watching doesn't look anything like that rocket plane)

Alex3917 10y ago

Fungi were plants in the west too until the early 80s. Anyone old enough to be making a speech on TV in 1991 would have probably thought of them as plants regardless of their country.

dchest 10y ago
Russian Wikipedia has this quote from the author of hoax: "I wrote a rebuttal to this statement [that a mammal can not be a plant] in 'Smena' newspaper. In fact, we spent the whole hour proving that fungi was a separate kingdom from plants and animals."
Bromskloss 10y ago
> Fungi were plants in the west too until the early 80s. What brought about the change? Was some difference between them discovered or was it a matter of deciding that it would be more convenient to give them separate names?
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Iirc, its because of their genome.
- dzmien 10y ago
  I think it has to do with the evolution of our scientific taxonomic system. It was realized that although fungi seem like plants in many ways, they have certain differences which warrant their separation from plants, phylogenically and morphologically.
- mdemare 10y ago
  Fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opisthokont https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opisthokont
  - gpvos 10y ago
    Under "History" in that article: >The close relationship between animals and fungi was suggested by Thomas Cavalier-Smith in 1987 >Early phylogenies placed fungi near the plants [...]

radiorental 10y ago

There was a deliberate suppression of entire fields of research & education from the 1930's onwards. Biology being one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressed_research_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressed_research_in_the_Sov...

Zuider 10y ago
Wikipedia does not note the real reason for the Soviet rejection of genetics. Darwin's theory of evolution, being based on random mutation and natural selection was seen as contradicting the theory of dialectical materialism which assumed a deterministic ontogeny culminating in a fixed and inevitable end point. The rejection was nothing to do with Nazis and priests.

tomkat0789 10y ago

I guess the Soviet government was known for such "logic". A dissident once gave a speech at my university and told us this joke: After the Americans landed on the Moon, the Soviet Politburo went to the cosmonauts saying, "Russia can do better than the Americans, so we are going to send you to the Sun." "Don't send us to the Sun," they said, "We'll burn up and die!" The politicians replied, "You think we are stupid in the Politburo? We will send you at night."

dumbfounder 10y ago
I thought you were going to say something like "Russia must do an even better job of being the first to the moon!"

PhasmaFelis 10y ago

I feel like he's more pointing out the fundamental absurdity of the whole thing than trying to make an ironclad logical assertion.

Zuider 10y ago

How is the claim that "Lenin was a bottle nose dolphin" more plausible, comrade? If a mammal cannot be something simple like a plant, then surely it is even less likely that a mammal can be a fish!