Laurence Horn, a linguist (and Larry to his friends), wrote the book on negation, A Natural History of Negation. On the Barnes & Noble entry for Horn's magnum opus appears the following "Booknews": "An exquisite natural history of this unique cephalopod by a paleontologist (who overmodestly professes limited zoological training)." This was noted by Mark Liberman on Language Log back in 2003, but, wonderfully, remains intact to this day.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Linguistics humor
A stacked relative clause construction (or, simply, a stacked relative) is a construction in which a relative clause modifies a nominal construction already containing a relative clause. A cleft sentence is a sentence one of whose constituents is introduced by anticipatory IT. A sentence which exhibits simultaneously stackedness and cleavage is the following:Lifted from Charles Fillmore's contribution to Studies Out in Left Field: Defamatory Essays Presented to James D. McCawley on the Occasion of His 33rd or 34th Birthday, via John Lawler.It's my buxom cousin who's wearing a low-cut sweater that's a good example of a cleft stacked relative.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Lite-Brite phrenology
"If a thought happens in a forest of neural dendrites, and no one is there to measure it, did you really think it?" -from Matt Hutson's blog. (The title is from his blog, too.)
Hutson had an article in the NY Times Magazine on Sunday, in their "Year in Ideas" issue, in which he discussed the term neurorealism (which means, roughly, "swallowing an fMRI scan whole"), which was coined by biomedical ethicist Eric Racine (and his colleagues) in an article in Nature Reviews Neuroscience. Racine et al. defined three terms that could use some more exposure:
neurorealism - how coverage of fMRI investigations can make a phenomenon uncritically real, objective or effective in the eyes of the public
neuroessentialism - how fMRI research can be depicted as equating subjectivity and personal identity to the brain (see also neurobollocks)
neuropolicy - attempts to use fMRI results to promote political and personal agendas
Try to work these into everyday conversation.
(Via Language Log!)
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Especially stupid religious "science"
You cannot make this shit up. (I'm on the grading side of exams, and finding stupidity on the Web seems far more interesting than ever.)
Chuck Missler explains the Peanut Butter Theory of Evolution:
Missler is not kidding. On his website, he explains: "Every time you open a fresh, new jar of some food item, and don't find evidence of "new life," you have conducted an empirical experiment which refutes the common superstition which continues to be promoted by the orthodox witch doctors of biogenesis: that life occurred without the involvement of a master designer." If you don't understand the sophisticated theorizing behind such a view, you are beyond help.
And, although the video below is old, I'd never seen it before. In it, Ray Comfort, alongside the chuckling chucklehead Kirk Cameron, explains his idiocy to us. In particular, he shows us why the existence of a banana is an atheist's nightmare:
How can anyone conceivably take these people seriously? Does anyone?
Bush = lying motherf*cker
George W. Bush on December 4, 2007, responding to a reporter's question about when he knew about the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that Iran had discontinued its nuclear weapons program in 2003: "And it wasn't until last week that I was briefed on the NIE that is now public." (Taken directly from the White House transcript.)
But Bush had been briefed, in August.
Yeah, I know I'm about a week behind on this, but maybe a few more people should know about this.
The accuracy of the NIE report is under dispute (see the Time link above), but this doesn't change the fact that (once again), that Bush is demonstrably a liar.
According to my calendar, we have 405 very long days until we are rid of Bush.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Texas science educator pushed out for advocating science
"Intelligent design" (i.e., creationism; let's call it what it is) is a very bad idea. It's not a scientific theory; it's transparently religion masquerading (very badly) as science.
But, despite the awesomely-bad science that intelligent design represents, this doesn't mean that political pressures can't generate even greater levels of stupidity, and quite probably illegal behavior.
The Texas science curriculum director, Chris Comer, recently was all but forced to resign from her position after she forwarded an e-mail about a talk by the co-author (Barbara Forrest) of a book entitled Inside Creationism's Trojan Horse. According to a November 29 article in the Austin American-Statesman, Comer was put on adminstrative leave in October shortly after she forwarded an e-mail about Forrest's talk to "several individuals and a few online communities." This apparently was a violation of a directive (see the disciplinary memo sent re: Comer; it reeks of weaselly legalese) given to Comer that stated that she was not to "communicate in writing or otherwise with anyone outside the [Texas Education A]gency in any way that might compromise the integrity of the [Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills] development and revision process." The TEKS revision is apparently an overhaul of the Texas school system curriculum that's ongoing. And Comer's mistake was to intentionally or accidentally endorse the idea that creationism in the guise of intelligent design is horseshit; her position within the TEA requires that she, as a representative of the agency, remain neutral about creationism and not provide (back to the memo here) "guidance or opinions about instructional methodology."
There were other dressed-up complaints in the memo about Comer's "insubordination", but these too smell like they came from lawyers who were trying to protect the TEA from a wrongful termination lawsuit. But it's clear what happened here: Comer was fired because she incidentally endorsed the (truthful) equation "creationism = not science" and this is not popular or acceptable in a conservative state like Texas.
Besides the witch-huntery aspect of this, what's most disturbing about this (although hardly surprising) is that some politicos in Texas believe that neutrality in the realm of science means that creationism is to be taken seriously as science. But it is not neutral to have creationism being taught in a science class; it is an positive endorsement of its scientific status, which is woefully lacking, and always will be.
UPDATE: The NY Times published an op-ed piece about this story this morning (Dec. 4). The conclusion: "We can only hope that adherents of a sound science education can save Texas from a retreat into the darker ages."
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