Re: New Google Service Searches Only Science/Technical Fields

From: alexV (alexV7623_at_comcast.net)
Date: 11/21/04 

Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 21:19:16 -0500

"Jacques Guy" <jguy@alphalink.com.au> wrote in message
news:419E2834.68D3@alphalink.com.au...
> alexV wrote:
>
> > "Jacques Guy" <jguy@alphalink.com.au> wrote in message
> > news:419DBB43.51DF@alphalink.com.au...
>
> > > "Reply to Li and Grosse's "Comments on 'Linguistic Features
> > > in Eukaryotic Genomes'""
> > >
> > > I suddenly knew that I had barged into a roomful of
> > > pseudo-scholarly intellectual wanking.
>
> > Genome is a code in one sense if we ignore physical/biological
properties of
> > it. It is a language which has not been fully deciphered yet.
>
> It is not a language, it is a "language". "Language" is a metaphor, and
> a bad one.
>
>
> > It has its own
> > morphology and grammar
>
> HTF do we know that since it "has not been fully deciphered yet"?
>
> > as any other natural or artificial language e.g.
> > computer language.
>
> Computer "languages"? Another metaphor. Or rather, their
> first designers were too lazy to make up a proper word for
> them, so they picked "language". Hey, why not! They were also
> too lazy to find a name for the wee mickeys you click with
> a mouse, so they picked "icon"--but they are no icons, they
> are symbols. Then along come some linguistically unwashed
> biologists who called the genome a language, its structure and
> combinatorial properties "morphology" and "grammar".
> Then along some more repellently unwashed types who mistook
> those words for their meanings in an another discipline.
>
> You would like the genomes to be languages? Granted. So be
> it.
>
> Then let me introduce another language: my car's gearbox.
> It has morphology and grammar. Its function is to allow
> the engine to communicate with the front wheels, and
> vice versa. You couldn't be more languagiform than that
> could you.
>
> The "morphology" and the "grammar" of the genome, or of
> my car's gearbox, are not in any way different from the
> gobbledygook of the postmodernist frauds that have been
> gracing the pages of "Social Text". They are terms hijacked
> by scholars (*snicker*) too intellectually lazy to learn
> what they mean. Exactly like the (thankfully) late Jacques
> Lacan carrying on about the square root of minus one, and
> Luce Irigaray (alas not croaked yet) about the sexism
> of E = mc2

Being an agnostic I would hate to send you in the wrong direction but some
people methaphorized that human genome is the language of God.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Article: How good is our genome?
    ... >> Our genome has evolved to perpetuate itself through the maintenance of the ... Past events have increased the ability of the genome to perpetuate ... such language helps more than it hinders. ... biology - that's the only realistic way of escaping such terminology. ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: New Google Service Searches Only Science/Technical Fields
    ... It is a language which has not been fully deciphered yet. ... > Then along some more repellently unwashed types who mistook ... > Then let me introduce another language: my car's gearbox. ... people methaphorized that human genome is the language of God. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: New Google Service Searches Only Science/Technical Fields
    ... It is a language which has not been fully deciphered yet. ... > Then along some more repellently unwashed types who mistook ... > Then let me introduce another language: my car's gearbox. ... people methaphorized that human genome is the language of God. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: New Google Service Searches Only Science/Technical Fields
    ... It is a language which has not been fully deciphered yet. ... > Then along some more repellently unwashed types who mistook ... > Then let me introduce another language: my car's gearbox. ... people methaphorized that human genome is the language of God. ...
    (sci.anthropology)