Evolution

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
You're in linguistic la-la land, pal. Have fun!

Well then what is your take on it? What is the true meaning of a given word? Is it the original meaning of the inventor? If so, are you sure you can trace its origin? If it is something else then please explain? I have asked along these lines several times and not yet got an answer.

I believe that a words true meaning is whatever meaning we believe it has when we use it. If the listener does not understand then a break down in communication occurs, but nobody has the right to tell the speaker that he means something other than what he thinks he means.
Obviously what was under discussion in this thread was what most people mean when they use a given word, which is why dictionaries and example phrases were used.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I didn't think it would. Black beetle is suggesting that there is something magical and special about anything that is living. There isn't. He initially limited it to conscious beings then expanded it to include plants. Can a plant choose what beer to drink?

I'm focusing on your statement that choice is illusory, not on what you think black beetle is saying. So, if you'd answer the question.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Well then what is your take on it? What is the true meaning of a given word? Is it the original meaning of the inventor? If so, are you sure you can trace its origin? If it is something else then please explain? I have asked along these lines several times and not yet got an answer.

I believe that a words true meaning is whatever meaning we believe it ...[text shortened]... people mean when they use a given word, which is why dictionaries and example phrases were used.

I was asking whether a speaker's ignorance that they are using figurative language somehow robs it of its figurativeness, so I'll stick to that point.

I think in practice very few people actually think about what they think a word means before using it: language tends to be used instinctively (there's a dead metaphor behind 'tends', by the way). A child angered by an adult may call that adult a bumhole. That is an example of figurative language. Does the child believe that the adult is really a bumhole? Probably not, though you never know. What we do know is that the child has no formal understanding of figurative language -- metaphor, simile and the rest of it. Yet it is absolutely clear that the child is using metaphor instinctively. The core meaning of 'bumhole' is not the same as the metaphorical meaning, yet the speech act is understood by all -- especially the adult on the receiving end, who rather than become concerned that the child is confusing them with an anus, is aware that they have done something to anger the child. So you have to look at the message, not just the words. And in the example we've been using, the message in 'the desert tests the cars' is conveyed metaphorically.

I've read that in their own special way gorillas also refer to people they don't like as 'excrement'.

Try this one: You're getting on my nerves.

Would you say that this is figurative language or not?

Originally posted by twhitehead
I didn't think it would. Black beetle is suggesting that there is something magical and special about anything that is living. There isn't. He initially limited it to conscious beings then expanded it to include plants. Can a plant choose what beer to drink?

This is false! How did you came to this conclusion?

Earlier at this thread I wrote:

"However the “plants” are not “chosen” from the desert. Earlier the plants were seeds that they came from somewhere; if the parent plant of those seeds is alien to the environment of the desert and the seeds travelled a huge distance before landing on the ground of the desert, obviously the seeds and the plants that they will emerge (if they survive that long) they will probably have not the time required in order to react properly to the environmental conditions and therefore they will not survive the desert.
Otherwise, if the seeds came from a desert plant solid enough to survive (thanks to its historical evolution -to its reactions to this specific environment due time, that is) the seeds and the plant that will emerge will probably survive. Again, there is no selection from the desert -in fact the environment is selected and slightly modified due time by the living existence after countless reactions that enable it to survive there. This is not contradictory to my earlier string of thoughts because the desert cannot make evaluations.".
So there is nothing magical, since your reply was “I see you do understand natural selection even though you don't understand English.”.

However it is you that you start the mambo-jumbo in a way similar to the thread “Logic and Reason”, for you continued as following:
-- “Even the word 'evaluation' does not require an intelligent entity and the desert most definitely does carry out an evaluation." etc etc. It is you that you are suggesting something magical and special because it is you the one who claims that the desert does carry out an evaluation, oh the horror! And it is you the one who claims that nature makes actually a selection although the whole thing is not a selection at all but a mindless product of cause-effect resulting to the Survival Of The Fittest.

I am aware of the fact that your field is neither philology nor etymology, and this is the reason why you are committing these obvious errors. No problem, I take for granted that we are all of us three honest and that you cannot contact some other linguists in person, so let’s try elenchus.

The Survival Of The Fittest is rephrased as “only a select few will survive”, and this is a metaphor because there is no actual selection (the actual meaning of the “select few” over here is “the fittest”, that is). If there was indeed a selection, who made it? Nature has no consciousness and therefore it cannot make a selection. If you attribute the ability of selection to a non-conscious entity, you have to accept either that every non-conscious entity (clouds, stones, rivers, planets, grains of sand, gravity, cyclones, black holes etc) can make a selection, or to show at what levels the nature is different that all the other non-conscious entities that I just mentioned.

All in all: no intelligence no evaluation, no evaluation no choice, no choise no selection. Mind you, since you accept that there is no such a thing as “choice” but merely Karma/ cause-effect in the mechanism known in Biology as “natural selection”, there is no selection at all😵

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Try this one: You're getting on my nerves.

Would you say that this is figurative language or not?

I get what you are saying, but you are not listening to my response. If neither the speaker nor the listener knows the origin of the phrase, but they do understand the new meaning, then the language has changed and it is no longer figurative. This has a much greater impact and is more common when it is an individual word and not a whole phrase that has changed meaning as phrase usually has words whose older meaning is still known to the speaker and listener.
In the example you cite, I know various meanings for the word 'nerves' and I don't actually know which meanings came first and which came about via figurative speech. Do you?
Clearly the phrase 'getting on' I see as figurative as I still understand the older meanings of the words.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I get what you are saying, but you are not listening to my response. If neither the speaker nor the listener knows the origin of the phrase, but they do understand the new meaning, then the language has changed and it is no longer figurative. This has a much greater impact and is more common when it is an individual word and not a whole phrase that has ch ...[text shortened]... ase 'getting on' I see as figurative as I still understand the older meanings of the words.

So an expression can be figurative or non figurative at the same time, depending on the awareness of the speakers: for a person aware of the origin of an expression, it would be figurative, while for another person using the same expression in the same conversation but unaware of its origin, it would not be. I see ...

I don't understand what you're getting at with your response to my example. 'To get on someone's nerves' is an idiom, it only makes sense as a whole.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
I see ...

I doubt that.

I don't understand what you're getting at with your response to my example. 'To get on someone's nerves' is an idiom, it only makes sense as a whole.
Nerves could mean in the scientific sense, or it could be as in 'nervous' which is not quite the same though related. I actually don't know which fits best, do you?
As for 'getting on', clearly you don't physically get on anything, but the meaning is understood. However one could replace 'nerves' with say 'case' and it would still have meaning, so the components of the phrase can be understood individually.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I doubt that.

Nice dodge, robot.

Millions of years ago there was a Big Bang from a dot as big as this one . which formed from NOTHING into the universe and living organisms we have today.... You are all arguing about NOTHING.

For those who dont know it yet, evolution is a fairytale. Evolution has been proven false plenty of times, the internet is where you can start learning the facts people.

Live your life right and always do good to others. If you believe in Jesus Christ as your saviour, it is good, if you dont, it is your choice, but don't let evolutionists print this load of nonsense in your head.

Originally posted by Nicksten
the internet is where you can start learning the facts people.

Have you met zeeblebot?

Originally posted by Palynka
Have you met zeeblebot?

Never.

Originally posted by Nicksten
Millions of years ago there was a Big Bang from a dot as big as this one . which formed from NOTHING into the universe and living organisms we have today.... You are all arguing about NOTHING.

For those who dont know it yet, evolution is a fairytale. Evolution has been proven false plenty of times, the internet is where you can start learning the ...[text shortened]... dont, it is your choice, but don't let evolutionists print this load of nonsense in your head.

the internet is where you can start learning the facts people.

Results 1 - 10 of about 86,000,000 for earth is flat.
Results 1 - 10 of about 9,600,000 for astrology
Results 1 - 10 of about 175,000,000 for magic is real.

yes, the internet is full of facts.


Evolution has been proven false plenty of times
you mean like sciency stuff? i would love to hear about it. and try and make the link point to something more elaborate than "evolution is wrong, god says so"

Live your life right and always do good to others. If you believe in Jesus Christ as your saviour, it is good, if you dont, it is your choice, but don't let evolutionists print this load of nonsense in your head.
you started this paragraph well. the ending is moronic.

Originally posted by Nicksten
Millions of years ago there was a Big Bang from a dot as big as this one . which formed from NOTHING into the universe and living organisms we have today.... You are all arguing about NOTHING.

For those who dont know it yet, evolution is a fairytale. Evolution has been proven false plenty of times, the internet is where you can start learning the ...[text shortened]... dont, it is your choice, but don't let evolutionists print this load of nonsense in your head.

Claim CA111:
Many scientists reject evolution and support creationism.
Source:
Morris, Henry. 1980. The ICR scientists. Impact 86 (Aug.). http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=163
Response:

1. Of the scientists and engineers in the United States, only about 5% are creationists, according to a 1991 Gallup poll (Robinson 1995, Witham 1997). However, this number includes those working in fields not related to life origins (such as computer scientists, mechanical engineers, etc.). Taking into account only those working in the relevant fields of earth and life sciences, there are about 480,000 scientists, but only about 700 believe in "creation-science" or consider it a valid theory (Robinson 1995). This means that less than 0.15 percent of relevant scientists believe in creationism. And that is just in the United States, which has more creationists than any other industrialized country. In other countries, the number of relevant scientists who accept creationism drops to less than one tenth of 1 percent.

Additionally, many scientific organizations believe the evidence so strongly that they have issued public statements to that effect (NCSE n.d.). The National Academy of Sciences, one of the most prestigious science organizations, devotes a Web site to the topic (NAS 1999). A panel of seventy-two Nobel Laureates, seventeen state academies of science, and seven other scientific organizations created an amicus curiae brief which they submitted to the Supreme Court (Edwards v. Aguillard 1986). This report clarified what makes science different from religion and why creationism is not science.

2. One needs to examine not how many scientists and professors believe something, but what their conviction is based upon. Most of those who reject evolution do so because of personal religious conviction, not because of evidence. The evidence supports evolution. And the evidence, not personal authority, is what objective conclusions should be based on.

3. Often, claims that scientists reject evolution or support creationism are exaggerated or fraudulent. Many scientists doubt some aspects of evolution, especially recent hypotheses about it. All good scientists are skeptical about evolution (and everything else) and open to the possibility, however remote, that serious challenges to it may appear. Creationists frequently seize such expressions of healthy skepticism to imply that evolution is highly questionable. They fail to understand that the fact that evolution has withstood many years of such questioning really means it is about as certain as facts can get.

Links:
NAS. 1999. Science and creationism. http://www.nap.edu/html/creationism/

NCSE. 2003. Project Steve, http://www.ncseweb.org/article.asp?category=18

Schafersman, Steven. 2003. Texas Citizens for Science responds to latest Discovery Institute challenge. http://www.texscience.org/files/discovery-signers.htm
References:

1. Edwards v. Aguillard. 1986. U.S. Supreme Court amicus curiae brief of 72 Nobel laureates (and others). (Case 482 U.S. 578, 1987) http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/edwards-v-aguillard/amicus1.html
2. NAS. 1999. (see above)
3. NCSE. n.d., Voices for evolution. http://www.ncseweb.org/article.asp?category=2
4. Robinson, B. A. 1995. Public beliefs about evolution and creation. http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm
5. Witham, Larry. 1997. Many scientists see God's hand in evolution. Reports of the National Center for Science Education 17(6): 33. http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_content/vol17/5319_many_scientists_see_god39s__12_30_1899.asp

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
Claim CA111:
Many scientists reject evolution and support creationism.
Source:
Morris, Henry. 1980. The ICR scientists. Impact 86 (Aug.). http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=163
Response:

1. Of the scientists and engineers in the United States, only about 5% are creationists, according to a 1991 Gallup poll (Robinson 1995, ...[text shortened]... www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_content/vol17/5319_many_scientists_see_god39s__12_30_1899.asp

Of the scientists and engineers in the United States, only about 5% are creationists, according to a 1991 Gallup poll (Robinson 1995, Witham 1997). However, this number includes those working in fields not related to life origins (such as computer scientists, mechanical engineers, etc.). Taking into account only those working in the relevant fields of earth and life sciences, there are about 480,000 scientists, but only about 700 believe in "creation-science" or consider it a valid theory (Robinson 1995). This means that less than 0.15 percent of relevant scientists believe in creationism. And that is just in the United States, which has more creationists than any other industrialized country. In other countries, the number of relevant scientists who accept creationism drops to less than one tenth of 1 percent.
In my business the majority is and has always been dead wrong. If you follow the crowd you are simply that ... one in the crowd. Think outside the box, stand on your own beliefs and be proud of them. You, my friend, are not related to a furry figure with big teeth. Big Bern.