Jul 23 2008
Sloppy Language, Sloppier Thinking
Today over at Science Daily I found an article titled this way: New Evidence Of Battle Between Humans And Ancient Virus. How, I wonder, did the ancient humans battle the virus? Spears? Clubs? Voodoo spells?
Oh, the immune system did the “battling,” if we can accurate call it that. Can we? Did the human immune system instead “develop in response to”? How else might we more accurately describe it, without causing the prose to completely atrophy?
Can prose atrophy?
Beyond the intentional, sloppy use of language in the article title and beyond, we find this paragraph:
Last year, researchers at Rockefeller University and the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center brought an ancient retrovirus back to life and showed it could reproduce and infect human cells. Now, the same scientists have looked at the human side of the story and found evidence that our ancestors fought back against that virus with a defense mechanism our bodies still use today.
My guess is there is a connection between sloppy language and sloppy thinking. In the least, the former enables the latter. Which brings my to Intelligent Design — talk about a slop-bucket of an idea!
As I daily encounter new information that supports the theory of evolution I wonder how people can persist in believing in Intelligent Design. Willful ignorance?
How could an IDer explain the above finding? Sloppy thinking might help, as would the use of vague language and/or inappropriate analogies.
Much of how we understand the universe depends upon language. We should use it wisely.
