Well, that's interesting.

[conuly]

I am firmly (firmly) of the belief that saying "temperature" when you mean "fever" is wrong, possibly even morally wrong.

And yet, I also believe that prescriptivism is wrong, possibly even morally wrong.

Well, it's easy enough to see how I reconcile this. Like most people, I'm fully capable of holding two totally contradictory thoughts in my head at the same time, without exploding. Really cool, huh?

That is the sort of thing that people will rail against. It's just silly, illogical (and not "illogical" like Spock seems to think) thinking, and It's Simply Not Right.

People do a lot of that sort of thing. People are prone to amazing leaps of mislogic, and amazing amounts of superstition (the current fad for antibacterial everything is, as far as I'm concerned, no less superstitious than crossing your fingers, especially when the evidence all shows that it's detrimental to make the world sterile), and all sorts of "bad" things.

But it occurs to me that there's probably a reason for all this. I mean to say, the human mind has lasted us a fairly long time, and it hasn't let us down yet, it might not altogether be wrong to have all these "flaws". Don't know what the advantage might be to any of them, but until any of us actually has a firm idea of how the human mind works (not likely), I'd rather avoid catagorizing them as good or bad facets of how we think.

Does that make sense? It made sense in my head, but it's currently in the 100s over here and my brain might be frying.

Comments

[rho]

My guess is something like this. Let's say there are 100 superstitions, along the lines of "doing this will stop me getting eaten by a lion". 99 of these superstitions are rubbish. 1 of them actually works. Then you have two people, one who follows all the superstitions and one who follows none of them. For the first 99, the second person has the selective advantage since they wouldn't be wasting their time on the silly superstitions. But then the 100th comes along, and the second person gets eaten by a lion. All the advantages accrued from the first 99 become meaningless.

If you don't have any good way of determining between superstition and reality, then you're better off erring on the side of caution, so that's how the human brain has evolved. If you can tell the difference you're better off actually acting on that, but the scientific method is a modern invention and we've had no time to evolve to make the most of it.

At least, that's my guess. I might be totally wrong.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

I think of a "temperature" and a "fever" as two entirely different things, and that's how I've always heard doctors use them, too. A fever is above 101° and a temperature is below that (yet more than the person's normal body temperature). They signal different things and require different responses.

The same distinction is made in Spanish, btw, with calentura and fiebre respectively.

[conuly]

The doctors are simply wrong, then.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

It's a distinction that needs to be made, though, and so you need to call it something.

[conuly]

Sure thing.

Lower-than-normal-temperature; normal body temperature; low-grade fever; high fever.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

Why do you get to decide and doctors don't?

[conuly]

Because you can't have temperature meaning two distinct things, one of which is a subset of another. Why shouldn't I decide that?

(Actually, true facts here, if I ruled the world I would totally spend my time on petty issues like this.)

[sayga.livejournal.com]

right, because everyone has a *temperature* at any given time, even if they're dead...

[conuly]

Look, I'm a hypocritical pedant, I know, I know.

Language changes, it does... it just... it just...

It's only supposed to change in ways that I, personally, like!

That doesn't make me a bad person. Does it?

[sayga.livejournal.com]

I'm agreeing with you. That wasn't a "right, because..." it was "RIGHT!! Because..."

[conuly]

Weirdly, I'm not agreeing with me, though

[gingembre.livejournal.com]

Kids will not be back until tmrw night. So you have one more day off. :-)

[conuly]

Go see drhorrible.com

[leora.livejournal.com]

This is useful even in the modern day. Often two views appear to contradict, but they actally can both be resolved as mostly true or mostly right if you understand some hidden factor that is hard to tease out. If both seem true, you shouldn't throw them out just because you're not smart enough to work out what factor makes it make sense. And so being able to hold contradictory positions allows you to act reasonably most of the time when you're not a super-genius.

[leora.livejournal.com]

For example, I am a descriptivist. But I believe we should move our language into a direction where it works well. Removing precision or adding ambiguity is not beneficial. So even though I believe language should evolve and that if enough people use it that way it does mean that, I feel that people are decreasing the value of the language by doing so, and that they shouldn't do that. Use your powers for good - change the language in good ways. The planet also changes due to the things we do, but that doesn't mean changing it in bad ways is a good idea, just that it really will change like that.

[conuly]

Of course, you could argue (and you'd be technically correct) that the language can only take so much ambiguity before the speakers find a way to add that precision back in.

I just don't have to *like* it.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Sure, but it doesn't make a swing toward ambiguity good. Just something we won't suffer forever. Nor does it make your two views contradict.

[rho]

My guess is something like this. Let's say there are 100 superstitions, along the lines of "doing this will stop me getting eaten by a lion". 99 of these superstitions are rubbish. 1 of them actually works. Then you have two people, one who follows all the superstitions and one who follows none of them. For the first 99, the second person has the selective advantage since they wouldn't be wasting their time on the silly superstitions. But then the 100th comes along, and the second person gets eaten by a lion. All the advantages accrued from the first 99 become meaningless.

If you don't have any good way of determining between superstition and reality, then you're better off erring on the side of caution, so that's how the human brain has evolved. If you can tell the difference you're better off actually acting on that, but the scientific method is a modern invention and we've had no time to evolve to make the most of it.

At least, that's my guess. I might be totally wrong.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

I think of a "temperature" and a "fever" as two entirely different things, and that's how I've always heard doctors use them, too. A fever is above 101° and a temperature is below that (yet more than the person's normal body temperature). They signal different things and require different responses.

The same distinction is made in Spanish, btw, with calentura and fiebre respectively.

[conuly]

The doctors are simply wrong, then.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

It's a distinction that needs to be made, though, and so you need to call it something.

[conuly]

Sure thing.

Lower-than-normal-temperature; normal body temperature; low-grade fever; high fever.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

Why do you get to decide and doctors don't?

[conuly]

Because you can't have temperature meaning two distinct things, one of which is a subset of another. Why shouldn't I decide that?

(Actually, true facts here, if I ruled the world I would totally spend my time on petty issues like this.)

[sayga.livejournal.com]

right, because everyone has a *temperature* at any given time, even if they're dead...

[conuly]

Look, I'm a hypocritical pedant, I know, I know.

Language changes, it does... it just... it just...

It's only supposed to change in ways that I, personally, like!

That doesn't make me a bad person. Does it?

[sayga.livejournal.com]

I'm agreeing with you. That wasn't a "right, because..." it was "RIGHT!! Because..."

[conuly]

Weirdly, I'm not agreeing with me, though

[gingembre.livejournal.com]

Kids will not be back until tmrw night. So you have one more day off. :-)

[conuly]

Go see drhorrible.com

[leora.livejournal.com]

This is useful even in the modern day. Often two views appear to contradict, but they actally can both be resolved as mostly true or mostly right if you understand some hidden factor that is hard to tease out. If both seem true, you shouldn't throw them out just because you're not smart enough to work out what factor makes it make sense. And so being able to hold contradictory positions allows you to act reasonably most of the time when you're not a super-genius.

[leora.livejournal.com]

For example, I am a descriptivist. But I believe we should move our language into a direction where it works well. Removing precision or adding ambiguity is not beneficial. So even though I believe language should evolve and that if enough people use it that way it does mean that, I feel that people are decreasing the value of the language by doing so, and that they shouldn't do that. Use your powers for good - change the language in good ways. The planet also changes due to the things we do, but that doesn't mean changing it in bad ways is a good idea, just that it really will change like that.

[conuly]

Of course, you could argue (and you'd be technically correct) that the language can only take so much ambiguity before the speakers find a way to add that precision back in.

I just don't have to *like* it.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Sure, but it doesn't make a swing toward ambiguity good. Just something we won't suffer forever. Nor does it make your two views contradict.