Every year, Lake Superior State University compiles a list of words to be banished for "mis-use, over-use and general uselessness." As I like to fancy myself a writer, this blog has an annual tradition (of which this is the second installment; that's a respectable lifespan for a blog!) of nominating words and expressions for the next LSSU list. Here are my 2009 nominations:

Green collar. This one was actually banished this year by LSSU, along with every other construction using the word "green" that does not have to do with nausea or envy. I wanted to single this one out for being an especially egregious and useless expression.

Down economy. Unforgivably overused.

These tough economic times. This clichéd phrase usually shows up in platitudes that are themselves useless.

Pass Constitutional muster. This terribly overused expression returns over 66,000 results from Google. What is a muster, anyway?

Shock and awe. This oldie was appearing in stories broadcast on NPR as recently as last month. I'm shocked that it is still in wide use despite appearing on LSSU's list five years ago.

Signature — as in, "signature dish" (uttered frequently by the infamous Chef Gordon Ramsay as he abuses struggling chefs), "signature service" (marketed by a certain large oil-change franchise), and many other abuses.

Give back. The phrase "give back" requires an object; one gives back to someone. To describe charitable endeavors as "giving back" is vague, ungrammatical, and devoid of meaning. (Oh wait: this was on the 2008 LSSU list. Well, it bears repeating.)

My readers (hi Grandma!) are an erudite bunch, and I know you are thinking of some words you ardently wish to see banished. Nominate them in the comments below!

If you read any of the many blogs or news sources that deals with bioethics, then you will have heard of the story from the BBC that a British fertility doctor has successfully performed eugenics via in vitro fertilization. He tested embryos for a gene that is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer, and implanted only those embryos that were pure enough to meet his standards; the rest were killed (euphemistically, "discarded"). What was really remarkable about the story was the ridiculous attempt to redefine standard medical terminology to make the act more palatable. Conception is synonymous with fertilization, but the BBC parroted the doctor in incorrectly claiming that conception is actually synonymous with implantation. This allows the doctors to pretend that the genetic test took place before any human individuals were created by saying it was "pre-conception." For more information, see this post on the blog Mary Meets Dolly.

For the benefit of readers who may encounter mendacious doctors and scientists who deal with beginning-of-life issues, here is a glossary of related terms:

abortifacient

A drug or other substance that induces an abortion. Abortifacients may cause expulsion of the embryo or fetus, killing it, or they may prevent the implantation of an embryo. In the narrowest clinical sense, the latter is not technically the termination of a pregnancy, but it does result in the killing of the embryo.

abortion

The termination of a pregnancy; usually used for terminations before about 20 weeks gestation. Abortions may be spontaneous and natural (in which case they are also called miscarriages) or intentional (in which case they are also called induced abortions). An abortion always results in the death of the embryo or fetus.

adult stem cell

Any stem cell derived from an individual after the embryonic stage of development. Despite the name, they can be obtained from fetuses, umbilical cords, and children as well as from adults. Adult stem cells vary widely in potency. They can be obtained without injuring the donor.

baby

A non-scientific, non-specific term referring to a young human individual. Depending on context, it can refer to a zygote, embryo, fetus, newborn, or older child. Obstetricians routinely refer to embryos and fetuses as "babies" when the pregnancy is wanted, but not if the mother intends to abort the pregnancy. See abortion.

chromosome

A unit of genetic material. Every species has a fixed number of chromosomes.

conception

Synonymous with fertilization.

diploid

Having two copies of each chromosome per cell. In mammals, all cells except gametes are diploid.

egg

Also called an ovum, a female gamete. In humans, eggs are very large cells that are usually produced one at a time.

embryo

An organism from the time of the first cell division to a set point such as birth or hatching. In humans, an individual from the first cell division after conception until eight weeks after conception (ten weeks gestation), at which point it is called a fetus.

embryonic stem cell

A stem cell taken from an embryo. Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, meaning they can differentiate into almost any tissue type. They are obtained by removing the embryo's inner cell mass, killing the embryo.

eugenics

The practice of attempting to improve the human race by either killing individuals perceived as genetically inferior, preventing such individuals from reproducing, or encouraging increased reproduction for individuals perceived as superior.

fertilization

The union of a haploid egg and a haploid sperm, resulting in a new, independent diploid individual. Fertilization naturally takes place in a woman's Fallopian tube after sperm are introduced through sexual intercourse.

fetus

In humans, an individual from eight weeks after fertilization until birth. A fetus that is near term is indistinguishable from a newborn except in certain physiological characteristics that change at birth, such as the closing of a blood vessel called the ductus arteriosus.

gamete

A haploid reproductive cell whose role is to unite with an opposite-sex gamete to create a new individual. Also called sex cells, they consist of eggs and sperm.

haploid

Having one copy of each chromosome per cell. In mammals, only gametes are haploid; all other cells are diploid.

implantation

The point at which an embryo, at the age of a few days in humans, becomes attached to the lining of the uterus.

in vitro fertilization

Fertilization that takes place outside the human body ("in vitro" literally means "in glass"). In vitro fertilization removes the sex act from reproduction. The zygotes are allowed to develop for several days into embryos, at which time one (or more) is placed inside the mother's body in the hope that it (or they) will undergo implantation, resulting in pregnancy. For practical reasons, it involves the fertilization of multiple zygotes, almost always more than can ever be implanted.

miscarriage

Also called spontaneous abortion, the unintentional termination of a pregnancy as a result of natural causes or, less commonly, accident.

newborn

Also called a neonate, an individual who has very recently been born. A newborn is indistinguishable from a late-term fetus except in certain physiological characteristics related to the loss of the placenta.

pregnancy

In mammals, including humans, the carrying of one or more embryos or fetuses in the uterus. In clinical terms, pregnancy begins at implantation, though the embryo exists as a separate individual in the mother's body before implantation. Thus pregnancy begins after the beginning of an individual human life.

sperm

A male gamete. In humans, sperm are small, motile cells that are produced daily in very large numbers by men's bodies.

stem cell

A cell capable of reproducing indefinitely, and usually capable of developing into one of several types of tissue. Stem cells are classified by "potency," that is, how many different types of tissue they can become. Stem cells are found in developing embryos, in umbilical cords, and in various other tissues such as bone marrow.

zygote

A brand-new, single-celled individual from fertilization until the first cell division, at which point it is called an embryo. The zygote stage in humans is very brief; it experiences the first cell division and becomes an embryo even before implantation.

Michael Dowd, the self-proclaimed "evangelist of evolution," wants religious people to discard their beliefs while keeping their religious language, which he would like to redefine to refer to concepts from the scientific theory of evolution and speculations of evolutionary psychology.

This is a pretty big horse pill to swallow. Dowd knows this, so he markets his ideas with his Seven Reasons for the Gospel of Evolution. And here they are, seven reasons Dowd thinks people of faith should come around to his way of thinking:

1. The gospel of evolution would give us a common creation myth. Since Christians and Jews already share a common creation myth, I assume Dowd must mean to use the gospel of evolution for a sort of universal ecumenism, in which all religions — Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity among them — acknowledge one and only one story of origins: naturalistic evolution.
   
2. It validates both scientific and religious ways of speaking. Of course, religious ways of speaking are already "validated" in the religious community. Dowd must mean therefore that religious ways of speaking will be validated among the atheistic community. Indeed, throughout his interviews, Dowd comes across as desperate for the approval of atheists.
   
3. It is a key to understanding and alleviating suffering, which comes from not living "integrously" with the flow of evolution. History, with its lessons on the eugenics movement and on Nazi genocide, teaches a far different lesson on what happens when humans try to base their ethics on the theory of evolution.
   
4. Religious language can be interpreted in a way that's universally true. By this, Dowd means it can be interpreted naturalistically. He says, "I don't have to wait to die to go to a place called heaven. When I'm in a place, integrity, love, compassion, generosity, care, consideration, I'm in heaven now, and so are you. It's true for everybody." But obviously, it's not true for those whose earthly lives are full of suffering, whether from loneliness, physical or mental illness, drug addiction, or other causes of grief. It seems cruel of Dowd to be so eager to steal the hope of a happy afterlife from people who are far from experiencing "heaven" on earth.
   
5. Only by knowing how we really got here and the trajectory we're on can we respond to problems like terrorism without making things worse. "It is impossible to know how to move into a healthy sustainable future" without understanding evolution, says Dowd. I agree that understanding evolution is important, but there is no reason religious beliefs should be discarded at the same time.
   
6. It unmasks the powers of manipulations. "We are so easily led around like a nose-ring (sic)." Here I assume Dowd is giving in to the frequent atheistic criticism of religion, that organized religion exists to manipulate the masses. Yet people of faith like myself believe we are more free in many ways than are people without faith.
   
7. "It gives us the tools for understanding how to have a great life and thriving relationships no matter what hand life deals us." That's funny; my Catholic faith also gives me those tools, and much more explicitly. I imagine that the Gospel of Religion has no sacraments, for example.

Michael Dowd Series:

• Part 1: Demoting the sacred
• Part 2: Original sin
• Part 3: Seven false reasons for the gospel of evolution
• Part 4: The compatibility of science and religion

Evangelist of evolution Michael Dowd is not content to promote a worldview devoid of the supernatural using the language of atheism. His mission is to appropriate religious language and redefine it.

He calls the words related to faith — words like reverence and holiness, and theological terms like living in Christ — "night language," apparently because they obscure what sees as the truth. (His truth is that there is no supernatural order; he even prefers the term "unnatural" to "supernatural.") The goal, which he states explicitly, is to redefine "night language" in purely secular terms.

Original sin

In one of the two Point of Inquiry interviews, Dowd explains how and why he redefines one particular theological term, original sin. (The orthodox Christian definition of original sin is that first human sin committed by Adam and Eve. This sin is inherited by all humans, and its effects include separation from God, which is healed at baptism, and a "fallen nature" or tendency toward sin, also known as concupiscence.) Dowd does not believe in a spiritual world and thus not in a universal spiritual wound; he would like to redefine original sin to be merely an artifact of human evolution.

In the interview, Dowd seems at times desperate to gain the atheist host's approval. He brags about his secular "street cred," obtained when he and his wife had a polyamorous relationship with another woman. Being disfellowshipped from the United Church of Christ (one of the most liberal Protestant denominations) was not enough for him to change his ways, but he is now in a strictly monogamous relationship because (I'm not making this up) he is afraid of papparazzi.

So "living integrously" for Dowd does not require monogamy, but it does seem to require honesty; in his worldview, adultery is only wrong if your spouse disapproves.

This is the evolution evangelist's explanation of original sin:

When a person's social status changes dramatically for the better, such as upon being promoted or elected into office, Dowd says one experiences a boost in testosterone. (I'll take his word for it.) A high level of testosterone leads to a preoccupation with sex. He says that an orthodox Christian's response to this experience is to assume that "sex on the brain" means that it is God's will for him to commit adultery. It would be a sorry understatement to call this statement disingenuous.

Recognizing that a preoccupation with sex in this situation is just a natural response related to human evolution, rather than a result of a spiritual fall, gives a person the "tools" to live "integrously" by not acting on those urges, while a spiritual view of original sin does not do so, says Dowd.

It is true that a purely spiritual view of original sin does not by itself give one all the "tools" they need to avoid actual sin. Catholics and most Protestants agree that people cannot avoid sin entirely by relying on themselves. God's grace always a necessary weapon in the war against concupiscence.

Still, there is no denying that insight into one's psyche helps one make good choices. But it is not necessary at all to believe in human evolution in order to understand how hormones affect thinking. Psychobiology is not the same as evolution; this example would be better suited to a "gospel of psychiatry" rather than a "gospel of evolution."


Michael Dowd Series:

• Part 1: Demoting the sacred
• Part 2: Original sin
• Part 3: Seven false reasons for the gospel of evolution
• Part 4: The compatibility of science and religion

The recent post about this blog's position on evolution has attracted a lot of attention. Perhaps I should have added that I believe evolution is "only a theory" in the sense that it is nothing more than an idea of secular science and is not at all a sacred thing. I say this to make a contrast with the position of Michael Dowd, a self-described "evangelist of the gospel of evolution."

Dowd, previously a Catholic and then a fundamentalist Protestant, is now the inventor of "evolutionary theology" and the author of Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World. He was recently interviewed in two parts on the secular humanist radio program "Point of Inquiry," where he explained his naturalized religion.

There is a lot to Dowd's message, parts of which will be addressed in future posts. But his ideas all boil down to one central thesis: God is not a supernatural, personal being, but a personification of reality. In other words, God is the "proper name" we give to all of nature. His term "Religion 2.0" seems to refer to a hybridization between pantheism and the philosophy of Spinoza, both descendants of Eastern philosophy.

Though he calls it a "personification," Dowd's thesis about religious thought actually makes God into a non-person. In other words, God's personhood is merely symbolic.

Dowd explicitly rejects all private revelation (what Catholics would call "the deposit of faith") in favor of the revelation uncovered by science. He says that scientific facts are "God's native language." This idea echoes the beliefs of the Deists, who accepted "natural theology" but rejected the revealed theology that is central to the claims of Christianity. Interestingly, in the radio interviews at least, he makes no attempt to refute the idea that revelation contains truth, but merely denounces it.

The Catholic Church holds that while doctrine can develop in the same way a flower unfolds, its core content never changes. The original deposit of faith was completed with the writing of the books now included in the Bible. The Church is so careful on this point that she uses a dead language as the official tongue of faith, lest the natural evolution of living languages distort the unchanging contents of revelation.

Nature likewise never changes (except, the Christian would maintain, through the rare interventions of God known as miracles), but our understanding and description of nature — in other words, science — changes frequently and often dramatically. For example, consider how the uncertainties of quantum mechanics (a model which even has a postulate called the Uncertainty Principle) compare with the clockwork universe of Newton. Even the theory of evolution, the scientific nucleus of Dowd's philosophy, may in principle be one day replaced or drastically modified as the central unifying theory of biology.

And much of Dowd's message draws not on the overall theory of evolution, which is a very strong model with overwhelming scientific consensus, but on the much more speculative field known as evolutionary psychology. To derive our behavioral "integrity," as Dowd recommends, from such a controversial discipline is to build our morals on a foundation of sand.

I subscribe instead to the Cartesian (and fully Catholic-compatible) view that science, as the study of nature, is subordinate to supernatural truth. By removing the supernatural from reality and calling the remnants "God," Dowd has made himself into an evangelist of nonsense. A commenter on the Point of Inquiry website put it well with these insightful remarks: "If the universe is god is the metaphor, then doesn’t god lose all meaning? ... An impersonal and unknowable god seems like no god at all, at least from a teleological point of view."

Michael Dowd Series:

• Part 1: Demoting the sacred
• Part 2: Original sin
• Part 3: Seven false reasons for the gospel of evolution
• Part 4: The compatibility of science and religion

Scientific American recently interviewed U.S. Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-Colorado) about her new book, Sex, Science, and Stem Cells. DeGette's book decries opposition to her favorite political pets, those related to human reproduction. Her thesis that this opposition constitutes an attack against science itself is an appalling lie, in which SciAm is blithely complicit. (It's not the only publisher so inclined; "Science and Religion News" glowingly praised the interview.)

The trouble starts right with the title of the interview: "Congresswoman Slams Religious Right's Assault on Science's 'Edgier' Side." "Edgy"? To many scientifically literate people, embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) is vivisection writ very small. Something that unethical can hardly be described with the benign adjective "edgy."

What began in the title grows worse throughout the article. On the second page of the online article, the interviewer asks, "Why did you choose to focus on what you call the "edgier-side" of the big antiscience conspiracy?" This is a classic loaded question, an informal logical fallacy, which makes SciAm's political position crystal clear. Let me refute the assumption behind this question here:

There is no big antiscience conspiracy. The Bush administration is not whispering together with other opponents of (ESCR), "How can we stymie science? Let's count the ways!" In fact, I think one would be hard-pressed to identify even one ESCR opponent who also opposes research that does not involve destroying human beings.

There is no assault against science. Rather, the assault is against particular forms of scientific research that are unethical. ESCR is in the same category as the notorious Tuskegee Study.

ESCR is not about sex. It's about human life: the lives of embryos and the lives of sick people hoping for cures. Research ethics forbid allowing the potential for medical cures to trump the rights of research subjects. It would be just as unethical even if adult stem cell research did not offer potential cures without the ethical thorns.

DeGette declares, "I'm pro-science." She seems to be trying to recouch language to denigrate her opponents, the same way abortion-rights supporters did when they coined the noxious term "anti-choice." There is an implicit lie in DeGette's rhetoric: If you disagree with her political views on ESCR, then you are "antiscience." SciAm should dispense with perpetuating this mendacity and pay no more attention to DeGette.

Wikipedia has so many discussions among its editing community, with so many bad rhetorical strategies repeating themselves, that it has developed a number of pages on "arguments to avoid" in discussions. For instance, for deletion discussions, the participant is advised on such esoterical problems as "notability fallacies" and "meta-reasoning."

In Internet discussions relating to more philosophical matters, particularly religion and science (both of them subjects of this blog), there are a lot of tired and false arguments that seduce intelligent people. Here are a few:

Argument by sneer.

Discussions of religion touch very deep in the people's hearts and psyches, and it can be easy to fall into the trap of seeing one's perceived opponents, or their positions, as stupid, wrong, ridiculous. Thus is born the argument by sneer. Its hallmarks are sarcasm and a patronizing tone.

The fallacy: Insulting a position does not make it false.

The ad hominem attack.

In an ad hominem attack, the argument is directed against the character of a person holding a position, rather than against the position. In a milder version, it may be a form of the association fallacy: Would you want to share an opinion with so-and-so despicable person? A more virulent version is an assertion of "poisoned thinking": So-and-so is so despicable that everything he thinks of is tainted!

The fallacy: An argument is not falsified when it is promoted by an undesirable person.

The extrapolated ad hominem attack.

The expanded version of the ad hominem attack may apply to an entire organization. In the wake of the sex-abuse scandals, it was frequently applied to the Catholic Church; many people rejected its teachings and philosophies because of bad actors within the Church.

The fallacy: The value of an group's ideals is not nullified by those who do not act by those ideals.
Corrollary: Don't judge a book by its hypocrites.

The reductio ad Hitlerum.

This is a special case of the association fallacy. It goes as follows: "Hitler supported X, therefore X is evil." Its inverse is "Hitler opposed X, therefore X is good." A cynical way to refute the association fallacy is to observe, "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while."

The fallacy: The value of an argument is not affected by the moral character of a person who espouses it.

The unintentional straw man.

A proponent of an argument may, due to ignorance, misrepresent the argument. Her opponent falsifies the misrepresentation, and on that basis declares the original argument false. Unlike the classic "straw man" attack, no mendacity is involved. The solution is to do your research when arguing against a position.

The fallacy: If Y is not equal to X, falsifying Y does not refute X.

del.icio.us

Crossword Bebop has a post about Lake Superior State University's 2008 list of banned words and phrases (and another about whether any of 2007's exiles should be rehabilitated). I'm using that post as a springboard for starting my own list of nominations. Here goes:

* Rant as a synonym for "opinion piece." It's overused and hard on the ears, too.
* To perfection, preceded by any culinary verb (cooked, grilled, etc.) for being grossly overused (pun intended) and for being meaningless. There is no "perfection" in most cooking techniques, only "right" and "wrong."
* Go down, as in, "Here's how it went down." If you are a soldier discussing a combat situation, or a cop discussing criminal violence, you may be allowed an exception. Otherwise, forget it. You just sound like a wanna-be.
* Spinning in his (her) grave. It was funny as a form of hyperbole the first time. Now it has lost its impact and is just macabre.
* Anti-choice as a synonym for "anti-abortion," for being disingenuous.
* Preborn baby, nominated in the spirit of balancing the list politically, for just plain sounding stupid. For the record: I am ardently pro-life. I just hate this term.
* Illegal alien. "Alien" lost its common meaning as "foreigner" long ago, and now it means "non-human extraterrestrial." That makes it an annoyingly dehumanizing form of rhetoric when applied to people.
* Breed when applied to humans. Often found in constructions like, "People like that shouldn't be allowed to breed" or "People should take parenting classes before they breed." This ugly term ties with "illegal alien" for most dehumanizing. Breeding is for animals; humans have children.
* Literally -- conditionally banned. It may be used as the antonym of "figuratively" (its literal meaning), but never again as a modifier to indicate intensity.
* Sales event was banished in 2005. I would like to affirm my support for eternal banishment of this term.

What would you nominate for the list?

LSU's complete list is here.




del.icio.us