Is evolution a metamessage?

[Lanakila]

By this question I mean, do scientists talk in technical jargon purposely to confuse and imply that non-scientists are inferior or just plain stupid. I get that often on this board. The science of evolution is just too technincal for you laymen to understand. Leave science to us real smart scientists.

Evolution on the molecules to man scale isn't proven. It is still being tested and studied. Its not a fact guys, its a proposal based on the evidence from the fossil record.

 

[Joe V.]

Which branch of science does not have technical jargon?

- Joe

 

[Caffeine Socialism]

Yes, the whole purpose of scientific research is to confuse stupid people. You know the Hubble Space Telescope? It's actually a big practical joke made by scientists at NASA for we stupid people to ponder. You couldn't be more right.

And your second paragraph confuses me. What are you trying to say, and to whom?

 

[LiveFreeOrDie]

The technical jargon is there for a reason: it helps scientists communicate precisely with each other. This is common in any field where there is a need to communicate highly specialized ideas.

Ever listen to two computer programmers talk about programming?

The jargon is not there to intimidate newcomers (although it certainly has that unfortunate side effect), it is there to communicate ideas. If you don't understand the jargon, then you can't really understand the idea. How would you feel if a complex idea of yours was criticized by someone who barely understood the English language?

 

[Morat]

 How do you expect to hold a conversation about genetics if you don't know what 'allele' means? 'Heterozygous'? 'Penetrance'?

  More importantly, what non-jargon terms would you use for them? Remember, you have to be as precise...

 

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

Stock traders have jargon, doctors certainly do, plumbers, mechanics, electricians, avionics technician and don't forget lawyers (!), heck even sports are full of jargon. Name one occupation that does not Jargon. Jargon is inherantly confusing to people not familiar with it. Not suprising it puts people off. And, yes there are those pompous individuals who like to actually try to intimidate people with thier jargon (in all fields). The purpose is jargon is NOT to confuse, but to communicate effectively.

 

[seebs]

Lanakila: The same question could be asked by someone who is curious about Christianity, and is suddenly bombarded with debates about transubstantiation, trinity, harmiatology, and the debates about annihilationism and universalism... Only theology has a much smaller set of data.

I don't see "this is hard to understand, and requires study" as an argument either for or against its truth. The question is, when I do that study, do I find that the results make sense. For the theory of evolution, everything about it I've been able to study has worked out. The information theory results were among the easiest for me (because information theory is in my fields), and they work for me... Since that's the famous "evolution shouldn't be able to add new information" counter-argument, I feel I have a real understanding of that argument... and I feel that the counter-argument is utter nonsense, and that there is adequate room in evolutionary theory to explain "added" information, in ways consistent with my understanding of what information is, and how selection can increase the amount of information available.

Basically, I can reproduce that one with an afternoon's idle coding; I *know* it is possible.

There have been no counter-arguments for evolutionary theory that I found testable, which have not fallen when studied closely. The only remaining arguments are mostly "well, it could have..." at a level comparable to "God could have made the world last Tuesday, and us with all these memories". Which is true, He could have, but I don't think it's a useful line of thought.

There does, of course, remain "it's faith, I believe in the Bible, and I believe that this part of it is intended as a literally true and historically accurate document, the same way modern history texts are written", and it's unassailable, but not especially convincing to anyone else.

 

[RufusAtticus]

Originally posted by Lanakila
By this question I mean, do scientists talk in technical jargon purposely to confuse and imply that non-scientists are inferior or just plain stupid.

As others have pointed out, scientists (and others) use technical jargon to precisely communicate professional concepts to their colleagues and students. If a non-scientist doesn’t understand the jargon but attempts to go ahead and criticize the field anyway, chances are that the criticisms are completely unfounded and badly formed. How can anyone criticize something if they don’t even understand the technical language of it? If I don’t know what flux is, how can I tell a plumber the right way to install plumbing. Now if the “plumber” doesn’t know what flux is, then you should worry.

I get that often on this board. The science of evolution is just too technincal for you laymen to understand. Leave science to us real smart scientists.

It’s not too technical for laymen to understand. It is too technical for laymen to criticize and pronounce absolutely wrong without first attempting to understand it. In my experience, a creationist that understands the science of evolution is a rarity indead. Most just simply have a Mortonic Demon.

Evolution on the molecules to man scale isn't proven. It is still being tested and studied. Its not a fact guys, its a proposal based on the evidence from the fossil record.

That is not exactly right. Biological/organismal evolution is both a fact and a theory. The fact of evolution is that the properties of populations and lineages of organisms, or frequencies of such properties, change over time. The theory of evolution explains this observation by identifying mechanisms that are responsible for it. Such mechanisms include mutation, natural selection, genetic drift, and isolation. It is the theory that is continually being updated and tweaked, as all good active theories are. It is not a proposal base on the fossil record, since the first well formed evolutionary theories came from Darwin and Wallace and were almost completely based on living organisms. Still today, the greatest evidence for evolution is from extant life forms.

 

[LewisWildermuth]

Almost every noun in the english language could be concidered jargon in that it tryies to use one word to explain a more complex idea...

Example...

I could say "Fred owns a large mamal with short hair excemp on the neck and tail that has four legs that are hoofed that is domesticated that is often used for the transportation of humans..." or I could say "Fred owns a horse..."

That's where jargon enters into play in the world.

And as for work related jargon, yes scientists and every other kind of work tend to develope their own jargon, even the lowliest of jobs like fast food develope their own jargon.

"Put ten tens down and regs also drop a basket."

What did I just say there?

"Put ten 1/10th pound meat patties on the grill and ten buns for them, also put a basket of french fries in the deep fat frier."

Jargon is everywhere two people are trying to find a quick way to express complex things to one another.

 

[NeilUnreal]

If scientists were only trying to keep secrets or create an exclusive club, they wouldn't spend huge fractions of their life teaching students, mentoring grad students, and writing books.  Almost without exception, my experience of nine and a half years as an undergrad and grad was the opposite: professors usually wanted to teach me more than I wanted to learn!

 

-Neil

 

[chickenman]

yes, damn them
always trying to teach stuff that isn't even on the exams!
they must think we're there to learn or something

 

[Cantuar]

Scientists who write books intended to communicate their findings to the public usually don't talk in technical language if it can be avoided (and sometimes it can't - I have yet to see a popular book on cosmology that doesn't resort to talking about quarks and branes and so on). Scientists who write for each other or for a scientifically literate audience are going to use technical terms, just like any other group.

When people get upset with criticism of science from people who don't know the most basic scientific terminology, it's because that ignorance shows that the person criticising really doesn't understand the subject yet is expecting to have his criticisms of specialists taken seriously. I think that if you're going to criticise something, the least you can do is find out enough about it that you know the basic terms.

 

[alexgb00]

Originally posted by Caffeine Socialism
Yes, the whole purpose of scientific research is to confuse stupid people. You know the Hubble Space Telescope? It's actually a big practical joke made by scientists at NASA for we stupid people to ponder.

Caffeine, jargon is a way of speaking (i thought you knew that). Scientific research isn't a form of jargon.

What is your point?

 

[alexgb00]

Originally posted by LiveFreeOrDie
Ever listen to two computer programmers talk about programming?

  LiveFreeOrDie, have you ever heard non-techies talk about computers like they know what they're talking about?

"My computer has seventy gigahertz of videocard."

"I have an LSD monitor with a Pentium 6 operating system."

"I like RAM. It sounds aggressive."

That's what it sounds like when people make it sound like they understand a subject, when they really don't. It doesn't mean they're stupid. Everyone's educated in different fields. I'm sure Albert Einstein was never big on geography. Johann Sebastian Bach probably didn't write good poems.

God bless you all!

 

[blader]

Originally posted by alexgb00


  LiveFreeOrDie, have you ever heard non-techies talk about computers like they know what they're talking about?

"My computer has seventy gigahertz of videocard."

"I have an LSD monitor with a Pentium 6 operating system."

"I like RAM. It sounds aggressive."

Hm. Even of the newbiest of the newbiest... I haven't encountered as dense as that.

 

[WinAce]

I'm kinda willing to bet that if such a 'newbiest' individual then proceeded to say 'hey, your program is badly coded and sucks' based on what he read on AnswersInBinary to a programmer who actually understood Unix and assembly language, the guy would get annoyed.

 

[LiveFreeOrDie]

Originally posted by alexgb00
LiveFreeOrDie, have you ever heard non-techies talk about computers like they know what they're talking about?

Yeah, and it sounds just like when creationists talk about science.

"The Earth-Moon system is receding at the rate of 1-2 inches per year."

"The Law of Conservation of Information says information cannot be created."

"The Earth's magnetic field has decayed exponentially since the Fall."

 

[Caffeine Socialism]

Originally posted by Caffeine Socialism
Yes, the whole purpose of scientific research is to confuse stupid people. You know the Hubble Space Telescope? It's actually a big practical joke made by scientists at NASA for we stupid people to ponder.


alexgb00: Caffeine, jargon is a way of speaking (i thought you knew that). Scientific research isn't a form of jargon.

What is your point?

----------------------------

In case you couldn't tell, I was being sarcastic. See that strange liquid dripping off my post? That's sarcasm.

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by LiveFreeOrDie

Yeah, and it sounds just like when creationists talk about science.

"The Earth-Moon system is receding at the rate of 1-2 inches per year."

"The Law of Conservation of Information says information cannot be created."

"The Earth's magnetic field has decayed exponentially since the Fall."

There certainly have been some howlers in the literature.