3 ms·

The semantic criteria listed in the article for defining 'disease' are not rigorous at all and rules out the following conditions that most people would agree a

• fhars 16y ago
  I think you misunderstood the list. It is not a list of normative criteria for the definition of disease, but of descriptive criteria, and not even a list of descriptive criteria for disease, but for uses of the word disease. That is twice removed from what you seem to be seeing here. Your observation that many common conditions fail several of the criteria is exactly the point of the list.
  • Goladus 16y ago
    There is no real point to the list, that's my point. You're exactly right. It's a partial list of some of the ways that people sometimes under certain conditions use the word disease. That would be merely boring except that he compares the list to the far more carefully specified definitions 'rube' and 'blegg' and subsequently uses the list as criteria in the next 3 paragraphs. He treats the list as if it's an actual list of semantic features, when in fact it's not. Ultimately he gives up on the question entirely: So, is obesity really a disease? Well, is Pluto really a planet? Once we state that obesity satisfies some of the criteria but not others, it is meaningless to talk about an additional fact of whether it "really deserves to be a disease" or not. What a waste of time.