¤ milky moon ¤

Jordan~, I have attempted to reply so many times and rejected them all, that I became discouraged. I am posting this in an effort to get unstuck.

Jordan~ wrote:The normal distribution that you refer to is grossly skewed in favour of Western Europeans in the last 250 years. It is not a normal distribution at all, it is a treatment of global history as if it consisted exclusively of French and British history from 1750 to the present day. The title "The Road to Serfdom" says it all: there is a clear and explicit concern to link the definitive political dichotomy of late modernity to that of all pre-modern eras (i.e. the vast majority, by literally a hundred thousand years, of the human past).

I wrote a lengthy reply under the assumption that the above is not an exquisite non-sequitur--as I have confidence in you presenting a rational front while I am your audience and we remain discussing certain subjects. I had the thought about the normal distribution and human behavior the day I posted it, but have not been happy with that asserted connection. Let me state, for the moment, that I do believe in "human nature" properly defined, though you may convince me that it is chimerical--if that's not too much exaggeration.

I did not refer to anything relating to "a treatment of global history". If someone has misused the statistical concept, then it is a separate subject, which I will be happy to have you explain to me. To what did I refer that is grossly skewed? I referred to a statistical method. As I mentioned above, I'm going back-off on my assertion that it demonstrates general predictions of human behavior and, for this post, want to address the statistical concept.

Based on my experience of people who mis-perceive and mis-define the word "normal", an explanation is indicated.

Normal Distribution



I took two semesters of Probability and Statistics. My experience in those two semesters was devoid of politics. I haven't the slightest idea of what you assert regarding a or the normal distribution. I doubt that you don't know about the statistical concept. Look at your OP: "On average, we're basically communists!" Your message is that, given a random sample of Newsom fans, it is normal to be "basically communist". Easy as counting.

"The" normal distribution is a type of statistical distribution (easy as counting) where, after the data is put to graph, 95% of the data are grouped symmetrically (distributed) 2 standard deviations around the mean (mode, median); half the remainder are grouped on the left and the other half to the right.



Note that assuming or concluding a result to be a normal distribution is valid only when a random sampling of the population can be accomplished or assumed (safely) or a compensation can be made; and the sample-size must not be too small . For example, if your link's population is confined to the UK, then it may be wreckless to assume that UK respondents are representative of the rest of the fan population.

If you accuse a statistician or writer of creating a "skewed" result in the sample selection and data accumulation phases, then it is a problem of ethics not statistics. I will add with complete confidence that if there is a predictable human nature, then statistical methods on a proper sampling will reveal the predictability.

I have encountered countless people who deny the existence of "normal", which I doubt they mean to be the statistical normal: I use the word "deny" as it is a form of denial. I've never asked anybody to defend the "there is no normal" belief as there can be no refutation of statistical normal, provided the data collection is legitimate and the sample is large-enough and representative of the whole, which is not always easy to accomplish. Further, asking someone to defend "there is no normal" would require me to reveal a person's lack of knowledge of rudimentary statistics.

Does anyone get upset at the statement, "Being seven feet tall is not normal"--other than neurotics?

Similarly for the statement, "If everyone in a defined population has some measure of social discomfort, then social discomfort is normal for that population."

Regarding discomfort surrounding the word 'normal', I think it's worth bearing in mind that the statistical sense of the word 'normal' is not the one most common in usage. Normal, when used in everyday conversation, carries heavy normative connotations (indeed, is cognate with 'normative') - to be normal is good, to be abnormal is bad. The statistical concept of normality, obviously, implies nothing of the sort. Frankly, I think it's churlish and disingenuous to deny that one recognises the greater currency of the colloquial, normative sense, or to conflate it with the statistical sense. These are two different words that bear a superficial resemblance.

Now, to clarify, when I said, "The normal distribution that you refer to is grossly skewed in favour of Western Europeans in the last 250 years," I was referring to 'normal' in the statistical sense, in the way you used it. You're correct that I spoke imprecisely; I mean that the sample on which that normal distribution is based is skewed, in just the way I described. For one thing, to my knowledge, no such sampling has ever actually taken place; efforts at identifying human nature have instead been based either on unwarranted generalisations from the self, or on wild extrapolations from a tiny and usually badly mishandled sample.

I will add with complete confidence that if there is a predictable human nature, then statistical methods on a proper sampling will reveal the predictability.

There are several problems with that postulate. To give two, firstly, human nature would have to include the nature of all humans in all times and places. Granted that those in the future are inaccessible to us, and their existence dubious, we would still have to include the millennia-dead, lest we identify the normal distribution of human behaviour in the early 21st century as human nature, rather than as what it is: a snapshot of norms in a fleeting second in human history. Excepting the possibility of time travel, an adequate sample - accepting, even, that the task of statistically defining human nature is a valid one to begin with - is consequently impossible. Archaeology, as archaeologists will tell you, can provide only interpretations of remains; it cannot usually tell you, in fine detail, what people did and why. All of a dead civilisation's members may have spent most of their time staring at the ceiling, and we would have no way of knowing, as staring at the ceiling does not leave an archaeological proxy; even if the civilisation were literate, staring at the ceiling is generally not the kind of thing one writes about.

Secondly, how would we go about dividing up human behaviour into particular categories which we could measure, such that our results would be anything other than trivial ("Human nature is to breathe," say)? Which schema of categorisation do we use? Why that one? How are classificatory schemata to be evaluated against each other? Without knowing your answers to these questions, it's hard to anticipate counterarguments; but my answers are: We could not possibly choose in a non-partial manner, such that our results would always be reflective of particular prejudices; There is no logical reason to select one over another; They cannot be.

What I'm questioning, at base - the reason we're talking about human nature at all - are the following statements:

For me and so far, human-nature understood within the full width and depth of history leads me to believe that the form of government established after the American revolution has been the best. The American economic associations manifest within this form.

It is human nature to which I point as evidence that humans prefer free markets to either Socialism, Communism or Marxism.

Jordan~ wrote:Regarding discomfort surrounding the word 'normal', I think it's worth bearing in mind that the statistical sense of the word 'normal' is not the one most common in usage. Normal, when used in everyday conversation, carries heavy normative connotations (indeed, is cognate with 'normative') - to be normal is good, to be abnormal is bad. The statistical concept of normality, obviously, implies nothing of the sort. Frankly, I think it's churlish and disingenuous to deny that one recognises the greater currency of the colloquial, normative sense, or to conflate it with the statistical sense. These are two different words that bear a superficial resemblance.
...

Remember that--in this post, I identify that I object to the widespread denial that "there is no normal": I do not address the use of "normal" as a judgement; I do know that you object to such judgements.

I can state without blushing or doubt that it is not normal to run over with my car--with intent or not--the neighbor's pets and small children. Would you care to object to this use of "normal"? Am I referring to the statistical normal, "abnormal is bad" or both? Isn't it "obvious" (your word)?

I wrote a great deal more, but need to clarify that I mean and meant the statement, "there is no normal", as the basis of the need to discuss statistical normal. Sometimes, a person will imply the denial of "normal" with, "What is normal?" or "I don't know what normal is."

What is going on is two-fold: There is ignorance of statistics and a desire to not be judged abnormal. Therefore, I assert that in "everyday conversation", there might be widespread ignorance of the mathematics of statistical analysis: "Might" as I have noted that I've never asked anyone whether they are familiar with statistical normal. We wouldn't be having this discussion if those who said, "There is no normal", said instead, "I don't want to be judged abnormal."

You, I, everyone must judge others--today and every day--in order to survive this world and maintain a civil society. Do you disagree? Does anyone disagree?

I will address the rest of your post in another entry.

Sometimes, a person will imply the denial of "normal" with, "What is normal?" or "I don't know what normal is."

Given that the assertion that there is no statistical norm - an absurdity given that statistical normality exists, a priori, within abstract mathematics - I think it makes more sense to assume that someone claiming they don't know what normal is means that they don't consider statistical normality to be relevant to whatever 'normal' is being used to evoke, in context. That is, if you say, "It's not normal to hate sweet food," a reply to the effect that the listener does not know what normal is would be equivalent to, "So what?"

I don't disagree that we must judge others. I do disagree that we must judge others against the statistical norm - an issue that I'm taking with contemporary virtue ethics, currently (or would be if I weren't too sick to make lectures at the moment) - not that I'm assuming that to be your position. Recognising the clear bifurcation of the normative and statistical kinds of normality, the denial of normality, as you describe it, in colloquial contexts is really a dismissal of an ad populum argument, not a denial that there is a concept of normality in statistics.

If you were to invoke normality in a non-value loaded way - say, if you were to say, "It's not normal for a brick to be spherical," (provided this was not uttered to someone engaged in making spherical bricks), the response would be unlikely to be a denial of normality, as it would be recognised that 'normal' was clearly being invoked in a purely statistical sense (even if that statistical sense were not perfectly understood). Very few people being told that spherical bricks are not normal would read into that declaration a strong disapproval of the concept of spherical bricks, and if they did, fewer people still would respond defensively (as no one, to my knowledge, makes or likes spherical bricks). In this context, it is clear that 'normal' is not merely 'good' in ad populum clothing, so there would be no reason to respond by denying [the relevance of] normality.

If, on the other hand, you were to say, for instance, to a Catholic in a mostly Protestant neighbourhood, "It's not normal to be a Catholic around here," the remark would be taken, understandably, quite differently: as a criticism of the listener's religious beliefs. Qualification of the statement with, "Statistically speaking, it is not normal..." and perhaps a subsequent clarification with, "...which isn't to say that there's anything wrong with being a Catholic here," would be required to clarify that no normative claim was being made. Even then, it would be an odd thing to bring up out of the blue, and would probably provoke (quite warranted) suspicion regarding the speaker's intentions. In the context of a conversation about the religious demographics of the neighbourhood, it would likely be taken as an innocent statement of statistical fact.

I think the problem is that you consider the understood content of the statement only on one side of the equation:

We wouldn't be having this discussion if those who said, "There is no normal", said instead, "I don't want to be judged abnormal."

Perhaps, but no one would be saying, "There is no normal," if people who said, "X isn't normal," instead said, "I disapprove of X," which is often what they're doing: in fact, it's almost always what they're doing, unless they're someone who uses statistics professionally, and even then, statistical normality is likely to be invoked only in the professional context. Statistical norms are seldom salient outside of contexts with a peculiar concern for statistics.

Dipping my toe into this rather rarified discussion, could I venture that the word "normal" simply implies - in everyday parlance - a correlation to 'the norm', and this latter term can be defined unemotively and statistically. Whilst I do have a (long ago) background in mathematics, I suggest that it's important that the thrust of the argument doesn't get lost in the slightly different ways in which the word "normal" is used in colloquial as opposed to technical language.

Therefore, whilst it could be argued that a statement such as "In Portugal, people aren't normally Protestant" (and setting aside the possible ambiguous interpretation that they may be abnormally Protestant) might be seen as implying some kind of disapproval (whether of Protestants, non-Protestants, or Portuguese people will probably be coloured by the tone and setting of the utterance), all it is really saying is that there exists a statistically verifiable demography of the Portuguese population, and that Protestantism is in the minority.

Where the variable lends itself to a sequence with an actual or implicit mapping onto a number line, such as a person's height, income, age, or number of children*, then we sometimes (though not always) see the familiar bell-curve of the Normal Distribution (though not always: it is easy to visualise, in my third example, that the curve will have a maximum at zero, and tail off into the distance in the positive segment, but - obviously - with a zero frequency for all negative numbers of children!) The definition of what is normal and what is not then reduces to an argument about how much 'tolerance' one is prepared to allow about the maximal value, beyond which a given reading might be ragarded as abnormal.

I might add that there is a category of variables which, although not intrinsically following an ordered number line, can be assigned points on a linear X-axis, or even on an XZ plane: Sexual orientation may be susceptible to the former (with 'profoundly straight' at one end, and 'profoundly homosexual' at the other), and ethnicity an example of the other, where a certain racial characteristic can be plotted against the point on the map from which it originated (I'm avoiding yet more complication by assuming the globe can be represented meaningfully on a plane: fortunately, there aren't very many inhabitants of the Polar regions to distort the argument in a north-south direction, but that argument doesn't hold quite as well in the east-west direction, where peoples trans-cend [couldn't resist] the traditional but arbitrary line that separates New Zealand from the Cook Islands). Neither of these approaches is without controversy, and it also makes light of possible blendings of variable (Where would one plot the child of a British sailor and his Hong Kong bride? And would it be meaningful to pinpoint someone of Afro-Caribbean origin in, say, Ghana, if his ancestors had lived in Jamaica for generations?)

However, not all variable are like that. Religion would be a good example (along with 'make of car driven', eye-colour, and many others): it would be a very artificial construct, if one tried to list these characteristics in some fort of order, and then plot a distribution on the foregoing basis that was meant to define what is normal and what is not. Nevertheless, that does not prevent us from identifying someobvious points of reference: Wikipedia tells me that four-fifths of Portugal's population identify as Catholics, and so it would not be misleading to say that 'a normal Portuguese person is Catholic'. Where a problem arise would arise is if we try to calculate this using some kind of formula, unless it is simply to split the population into two categories: Catholic and Non-Catholic. In other words, a system that tried to order or 'weight' someone's religion, even ignoring any perceived offence to groups allocated low or negative numbers, would be intensely problematical. Try is: suppose we say that Catholicism is allocated a number, 10 for example. Then perhaps Protestantism (in all its forms) might be allocated, say, 8. Other abrahamic religions could be given numbers close to 10: how about Judaism = 12, and Islam 14. It may just be possible to allocate numbers to, for example, certain quasi-Christian belief sets could be allocated slot 6. But then, where on earth would one put Buddhists, animists, followers of Norse gods, and other categories that are only loosely related to Christianity. And if one cannot place the characteristics in some sort of order, then it becomes impossible to plot a meaningful frequency diagram.

So to sum up, I would agree with Jordan~'s final statement that "Statistical norms are seldom salient outside of contexts with a peculiar concern for statistics", but that it might be enlightening to draw other conclusions of a non-statistical basis if the responses to "What is an average Joanna Newsom fan" demand them. If Mercedes-driving Scientologists were in the majority here, it would surely be worthy of note, even if it would be impossible to factor in the effect of an influx of Buddhists with Aston Martins to arrive at a new weighted average.

* The slight complication that this last is a discrete variable, capable of taking only integer values, is not really relevant to the point.

PPS - I am so glad I clipboarded of all the above before discovering I'd been timed-out while typing: I couldn't face tyoping it all again any more than I imagine anyone could face reading it more than once, if that.

Steve wrote:Dipping my toe into this rather rarified discussion, could I venture that the word "normal" simply implies - in everyday parlance - a correlation to 'the norm', and this latter term can be defined unemotively and statistically. Whilst I do have a (long ago) background in mathematics, I suggest that it's important that the thrust of the argument doesn't get lost in the slightly different ways in which the word "normal" is used in colloquial as opposed to technical language.

The discussion about the senses of the word 'normal' is something of a digression; I understand that the statistical sense of the word is, in principle, 'neutral', whatever that means. That's intuitively enough grasped when you consider that a normal distribution could be found in a set of randomly generated numbers which refer to and represent nothing. Clearly, in that case, describing numbers within a certain range as 'normal' carries no evaluative weight; it's simply* a statement of fact that, according to the mathematical definition of normality, that range is normal. My point is, rather, that in real-life scenarios, these laboratory conditions of emotive emptiness are very seldom found. There is no data set containing things in the world about which one can speak without the weight of history bearing down on one's words.

Steve wrote:Paragraph 2: "...all it is really saying is that there exists a statistically verifiable demography..."

All it is really saying, surely, is what it in fact says? As you note, what is read into it "will probably be coloured by the tone and setting of the utterance" (your vocabulary makes me wonder if you've read Goffman). And, indeed, the composition of the speaker and the audience, and the relationship between them, and the history surrounding the relationship between them, and so on. The fact of the matter is that all of that is every bit as much a part of what the utterance means as whatever arbitrary definitions of the words of which it composed happen to have been written down in a dictionary somewhere. We continuously, in our daily lives, speak in a manner that acknowledges this fact. We choose our words carefully, more carefully in some situations than in others; we speak freely or less freely; we seldom appeal to 'all we were really saying' unless we badly misspeak, and when we do, it probably backfires (because who, after all, are we to say what we were really saying? We have a clear agenda). It is possible to couch the words in so much qualification and reassurance as to eliminate misunderstanding of our benign intentions as far as possible. As in the example I give above, though, the mere fact of our having brought a particular piece of data to attention - demonstrating that it is, to us, salient in this situation - is itself something which might occasion suspicion. Why point out that most Portuguese are Catholics here, now, at my cousin João's Bar Mitzvah? What point are you trying to make, exactly? It is not only what it's really saying, it's also what is being said in saying it, what saying it does, and so on. But all this is quite intuitive to anyone who's spoken to someone before, and especially to anyone who's ever had an argument.

Paragraph 3: "The definition of what is normal and what is not then reduces..."

This is true (and even then only to a point, as discussed above) only if one assumes the primacy of the statistical definition, which is the most salient sense of the word 'normal' in a tiny minority of human conversations. It's a very statistically abnormal way of using the word 'normal'. Other technical definitions abound, even: in sociology one would more usually mean, by normal, adhering to social norms; not deviant. There's hardly a branch of mathematics or a science that lacks its own technical definition. It's worth noting that the etymon for 'normal' is Latin norma, which means both a carpenter's square and a rule or norm, and the word's etymology further back than that is unclear. The diverging senses can be seen, in other words, from the very beginning; neither is prior, and both have continuously coexisted for as long as the word has been spoken, in any language. (Note that this is true even of its derivatives: "enormous" can mean either statistically abnormal in size, or monstrous, atrocious, despicable.) The inescapable fact is that when one uses the word 'normal' outside of a few very specific contexts, one is well aware that one is using a very ambiguous and potentially dangerous word.

Paragraph 4: "I might add that there is a category of variables..."

There are problems with those examples. The full range of possible expressions of sexuality isn't captured by a line between two poles (for one thing, such a line automatically excludes any non-binary gender categories which are not straightforwardly related to binary genders as either héteros or homós). The notion of ethnicities as intrinsically embodied in particular physiological features has been considered discredited since the mid-to-late 20th century (and in many circles, before that); ethnicity is nowadays recognised as more or less a matter of arbitrary social differentiation which bears little or no relation to genetics or physiology, save for its sometime use of 19th century racialism as an idiom of difference (in anthropology, there would be many who would argue that ethnicity is far more constructed than religion, and many who would argue that both concepts are little more than anthropologists'/academics' errors gone wild. Along with sexuality). Neither of those tasks would be possible, in other words; or, rather, neither of those tasks would be possible without denying a lot of people's existence or erasing the history of movements of peoples between and within Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas, and of the colonial strategies of divide and rule through racialist, physignomic classification used to oppress enslaved and colonised populations.

Paragraph 5: "...it would not be misleading to say that 'a normal Portuguese person is Catholic'."

Well, it wouldn't be and it would be. It would be in the sense that one could declare, with ample justification, "Well, I'm a normal Portuguese person and I'm no Catholic!" Again, qualification would be needed to clarify that statistically speaking, with respect to religious self-identification, a normal Portuguese person is Catholic. Of course, it may be the case that it's statistically true that a normal Portuguese person is always Catholic, regardless of whether or not the topic under discussion is religion.


But then one might well question why religious self-identification had been included in a data set about Portuguese demographics, when something else - the smell which one considers most melancholy, for instance - had probably been missed out. A Portuguese person might well think that the Portuguese are much more defined by their emotional responses to odours than by their religious affiliations. The mere fact that you have the data with which to back up the claim tells a story; someone was interested, for some reason, in finding out what religions Portuguese people belong to, and in their quest to find out, they had to define religion (do we count the Jedis?), identify a means of testing it (presumably, census response), and so on and so forth. Presumably people who had been excommunicated from the Catholic Church were still allowed to put their religion down as Catholic, if they wanted to, despite the fact that the Pope - according to Catholics, the infallible voice of God Himself - had said they're not. So then whose word do we take regarding the exact number of Catholics in Portugal? Or what if a very conservative cardinal declares that the Pope is a charlatan possessed by the devil, and a true Pope would say that no one is a Catholic who sins unrepentantly, and that this disqualifies most of the world's Catholics from communion? Such scenarios could multiply forever. That seemingly innocuous bit of data from Wikipedia is in fact enormously loaded.

There's a rich and deep narrative that expands out from your example in this conversation involving successive Portuguese regimes and the Portuguese state's techniques of power, the history of Mediaeval and Early Modern Europe and of global geopolitics, Portuguese theology, and so on. Whether or not a statement regarding the proportion of Catholics in Portuguese population does end up being misleading, it's a lot of other things, too, and certainly never an objective statement of fact.

So to sum up, I would agree with Jordan~'s final statement that "Statistical norms are seldom salient outside of contexts with a peculiar concern for statistics", but that it might be enlightening to draw other conclusions of a non-statistical basis if the responses to "What is an average Joanna Newsom fan" demand them. If Mercedes-driving Scientologists were in the majority here, it would surely be worthy of note, even if it would be impossible to factor in the effect of an influx of Buddhists with Aston Martins to arrive at a new weighted average.

I think, actually, we got on to normality through a discussion about human nature, whether or not it exists, and if it can or cannot be measured statistically. Clearly, I think such a task is ludicrous.

The YouGov data on Joanna Newsom fans is obviously a bit frivolous, though, being based on a few dozen of us in the UK. She's grown a lot older since the last time I checked, actually! Where have all the years gone? They no longer seem to have political spectrum data up any more, which is actually what occasioned this whole discussion - the observation, on my part, that we were off the scale on the left end, according to YouGov.

*Actually not at all simply, but that's a whole other kettle of fish, and one I've grown weary of opening since Part IIA Social Anthropology.

Hi Jordan~

Well, thank you for your long, interesting, and closely reasoned reply! I must admit that I had not expected what I said to have been so worthy of such a response, since it was written from an amateur / lay perspective, but for some half forgotten maths studies. (In fact, although i considered fairly carefully what i wanted to say, I'd expended at least as much thought in wording my post in such a way as to avoid giving offence or appearing prejudiced against any particular grouping - often a futile endeavour given the shifting sands of vocabulary, not only from one moment to the next, but also between different persons inhabiting the same moment). However, your reply served to point out several errors I'd made, not only in neutrality of wording, but in, for example, restricting the senses of the word "normal" to the two that sprung to my mind: statistical and everyday. In fact, I very much enjoyed your etymological diversions into "normal" etc, and your hypothetical ones, such as how strictly we should define words such as "Catholic", and whether that group of people has the right to define itself, or whether it can only be circumscribed by the perceptions of the populace as a whole - including but not limited to the core set.

That said, and interesting though it is, I'm seriously out of my depth here with you and r-enter-ested, as I'm sure you can tell: I lack the breadth of knowledge to make my points stick, or even to be sure they're valid in the first place. However, I'll admit to being flattered that you thought I was a Goffman scholar! Is that a good thing?

I have absolutely nothing useful to add to this conversation, just wanted to say I love reading it!

Do you know ... when I saw that there'd been a comment on here from someone other than Jorda~ or r-enter-ested, I said to myself "That'll be someone saying 'I don't know what you three are on about' ... and I will post back 'Nor do I'". I was close. I am glad it's entertaining at least one other person, as well as me.

Steve wrote:However, I'll admit to being flattered that you thought I was a Goffman scholar! Is that a good thing?

Yes! He actually wrote mainly for the mass market, and his books are all about social interaction in fine detail. He's best known for the 'dramaturgical analogy'; he describes social life using an extended metaphor comparing it to the theatre. Stigma is maybe his most famous work; it was a bestseller for a long time in the USA and played a role in changing social attitudes, at least for the 'respectable' classes. He's become somewhat more relevant in anthropology recently(ish) as a source of inspiration for the performativity programme, via Michel Callon. Check him out if you get a chance!

Jordan~ wrote:

Sometimes, a person will imply the denial of "normal" with, "What is normal?" or "I don't know what normal is."

Given that the assertion that there is no statistical norm - an absurdity given that statistical normality exists, a priori, within abstract mathematics - I think it makes more sense to assume that someone claiming they don't know what normal is means that they don't consider statistical normality to be relevant to whatever 'normal' is being used to evoke, in context. That is, if you say, "It's not normal to hate sweet food," a reply to the effect that the listener does not know what normal is would be equivalent to, "So what?"
...

Then there is nothing that remains for you and me to discuss with respect to anyone's use or misuse of "normal". On the other hand, there is no way to avoid the subject if we are to discuss whether "human nature" is a valid designation to describe the preference for liberty as opposed to the oppression of Socialists, Marxists, Communists and intolerant Leftists.

Let's determine whether I am correct. I'm going to confine my discussion to examples of what might be categorized as "human nature"--Please note that I will use "Nature" to refer to "Mother Nature": If you see "human nature", then I'm not referring to the Nature of Earth which is responsible for trees and grass growing--for fuck's sake.

But first!; I was quite amused at your reference to ad populum as this is exactly the basis of relying on what you termed "greater currency" (my emphasis below):

Jordan~ wrote:Regarding discomfort surrounding the word 'normal', I think it's worth bearing in mind that the statistical sense of the word 'normal' is not the one most common in usage. Normal, when used in everyday conversation, carries heavy normative connotations (indeed, is cognate with 'normative') - to be normal is good, to be abnormal is bad. The statistical concept of normality, obviously, implies nothing of the sort. Frankly, I think it's churlish and disingenuous to deny that one recognises the greater currency of the colloquial, normative sense, or to conflate it with the statistical sense. These are two different words that bear a superficial resemblance. ...

My unposted draft contained this:

What you've deemed "greater currency" would get you smacked silly with a charge of using the "bandwagon" fallacy (appeal to popularity) in another context and by another poster: I don't wield the "Fallacy" sword; I prefer to state plainly the error as it provides greater understanding and avoids missing exceptions to the rule implied by the label. In this case, appeal to popularity in plain enough.

Further, I have nothing to add to the discussion if there is no agreement on the definition "neutral".

r-enter-ested wrote:Then there is nothing that remains for you and me to discuss with respect to anyone's use or misuse of "normal". On the other hand, there is no way to avoid the subject if we are to discuss whether "human nature" is a valid designation to describe the preference for liberty as opposed to the oppression of Socialists, Marxists, Communists and intolerant Leftists.

Have you read Marx? It's startling that we can be talking about the same things, capitalism and communism, and where you see freedom - in capitalism - I see abject, meaningless slavery and the imprisonment of human potential, and where you see oppression - in communism - I see the promise of freedom.

Let's determine whether I am correct. I'm going to confine my discussion to examples of what might be categorized as "human nature"--Please note that I will use "Nature" to refer to "Mother Nature": If you see "human nature", then I'm not referring to the Nature of Earth which is responsible for trees and grass growing--for fuck's sake.

The nature/culture binary has no a priori existence, so this should be interesting.

But first!; I was quite amused at your reference to ad populum as this is exactly the basis of relying on what you termed "greater currency" (my emphasis below):

...

What you've deemed "greater currency" would get you smacked silly with a charge of using the "bandwagon" fallacy (appeal to popularity) in another context and by another poster: I don't wield the "Fallacy" sword; I prefer to state plainly the error as it provides greater understanding and avoids missing exceptions to the rule implied by the label. In this case, appeal to popularity in plain enough.

No, not at all. Relying on greater currency is linguistic descriptivism; prescriptivism in an utter nonsense. I've never heard a single argument in favour of prescriptivism that I didn't find utterly, prima facie absurd. It turns linguistics from the study of language into the moralistic regulation of language. That words mean what they are used to mean and taken to mean (and not what is written down in a book somewhere) is empirical fact; one need not resort to fallacy to support it. Furthermore, I'm not making an argument that the usage with greater currency is more correct (on the contrary, I'd argue that to speak of a correct usage of a word is nonsensical); I'm arguing that it's more likely to be understood. An appeal to numbers would actually be a sound premise of such an argument: obviously, if more people understand something by "normal", then "normal" is more likely to be understood in that way. If one were to simply look for keywords and respond with the corresponding fallacy, that would be sophomoric; it would demonstrate a failure to understand why the fallacy is actually wrong. Note that my own reference to ad populum was not applying it to a particular argument, but characterising a sort of argument in which statistical normality is used to assert superiority: more or less the definition of the fallacy.

Further, I have nothing to add to the discussion if there is no agreement on the definition "neutral".

My objections to the notion of a 'neutral'/'objective' statement can be found in my response to Steve. I understood what is meant by 'neutral', but I don't believe I've ever encountered it in the wild. Rather, every time I've heard something claimed to be neutral, the claim turns out to be purely ideological.

I'm officially bowing out of this discussion. If I ever decide to the end posting at the EvoFairytale forum, then I'll continue here--I don't have the motivation to debate in two places and it is bad for my health.

I've made no plea for moralistic regulation of language. Peddle that to someone else. Thanks for your participation.

r-enter-ested wrote:I've made no plea for moralistic regulation of language. Peddle that to someone else. Thanks for your participation.

I didn't accuse you of that; I only said that that's the alternative to descriptivism.

Jordan~ wrote:

r-enter-ested wrote:I've made no plea for moralistic regulation of language. Peddle that to someone else. Thanks for your participation.

I didn't accuse you of that; I only said that that's the alternative to descriptivism.

Well, I've made the break with the insalubrious forum <*cough*> and....

....and; Well, we'll see!

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