This is a huge inductive leap from what I said. I said the word ‘evolution’ could be used in contexts other than biology. Just like I can say “I object to the marriage of politics and religion.” ‘Marriage’ in that context would be synonymous with “linking” or “intertwining” or “coupling.” My use of the word ‘marriage’ to describe an alliance between politics and religion indicates absolutely nothing about my beliefs about marriage as a social institution. If you were to read my use of the word ‘marriage’ in the context I used it as somehow introducing the topic of sex and procreation into the topic of religion and politics, (since ‘marriage’ in other contexts could imply those things) I would be understandably bewildered. I am confident I am using words in a way that the vast majority of English speakers can easily understand when I say “language evolves.” Biological evolution (and all its related implications and connotations) has nothing to do with that sentence.
I don’t have a “theory against evolutionary biology.”
I don’t think morality evolves.
I don’t think biology alone explains the human psyche, human social constructs or relationships, human culture, or human morality. So I think anyone who tries to address those areas from a purely biological-chemical-genetic standpoint will fail to offer adequate explanations. I do not think that means that biology or genetics has nothing to offer social sciences.
There are certainly subdisciplines of linguistics that have nothing to do with ethics. Phonology for example. Or historical linguistics. Sociolinguistics, on the other hand, relies heavily on sociology, anthropology, political science, and psychology and very much deals in ethics and justice issues.
Not what I said. I said the choice of which synonym is irrelevant in the given context, because in that context, they mean the same thing.
This makes absolutely no sense. My qualms about evolutionary psychology have to do with trying to find biological explanations for phenomena that I believe have spiritual dimensions. It has nothing to do with the dictionary definition of the verb ‘evolve.’ [quote=“Al-Khalil, post:13, topic:36040”]
And by the way, the field evo-devo doesn’t exist because that’s redundant according to your synonym mandate?
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Seriously? In the context of evo-devo, (which is short for evolutionary developmental biology) it is clear that ‘evolutionary’ refers to the evolutionary paradigm of biology, not the generic “change over time” sense of the word. I never proposed a ‘synonym mandate.’ I simply used words in the normal way people use words, as I understand it, as an encultured and educated English speaker.
Is this your idea of a fun debate? Attributing wildly non-sensical claims to other people and then watching them respond? I feel like you are intentionally misrepresenting me just to be hostile. We aren’t actually discussing anything. I am basically just defending my fairly straightforward communication from your bewildering accusations about what I “meant” by it.
