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It's not that different than naming a Protein by a Greek god or goddess, is it?
by mcbuilder 4y ago
It's not that different than naming a Protein by a Greek god or goddess, is it?
- bitwize 4y agoThere was controversy surrounding the name. If you're a doctor telling parents that their child is sick because of a defect in the sonic hedgehog protein, they're going to think you're trolling them. So these days they just tend to use abbreviations like SHH, and for new genes and proteins there is a standard nomenclature. One of the lessons we've learned since the 90s is that cute names (for genes, proteins, servers, programming languages, etc.) can be inadvertently problematic or made retroactively problematic, and are better off avoided.
- b800h 4y agoDo we use this expression "problematic" to make an objective statement by side-stepping the subjective term "offensive"?
- bitwize 4y agoIt just means "causes a problem". I have proposed the use of "marginalizing" as a replacement for "offensive" in the sense of "reinforces systemic biases against certain groups of people", after I saw character on a British procedural say "Don't call somebody 'hot' or 'a lush'; it's marginalising."
- bawolff 4y agoSeesh its just a synonym. The english language is full of them.
- GuB-42 4y agoUhm... maybe if you are talking about that Greek god. You know, the one who delights schoolchildren and exasperates astronomers.