We can make objective measurements of temperatures, but do you think these measurements would hold any objective meaning over how human something is⸮
Yes absolutely. The scientific human is the current average. In a sense, how scientifically close to one is could be better described as how close to the average human one is. And in that sense, nobody is the scientific human. Nobody actually is the average.
Our definition of humans was entirely subjective and flawed on top. There is no way to objectively define humans, it would all be based on your subjective perception.
Well, through a turn of events the entire group of scientists who were put in charge of finding out what the average of human is are all lizardpeople. They think that being able to lick your eyeballs is an essential part of human. So when they were recruiting their subjects they have only been choosing those who can lick their eyeballs.
So they make a scan of all of their subjects and crunch through the numbers and come up with the average. This average sure is objective, but the group they’ve sampled obviously isn’t.
But well, this average now has been accepted as the scientific human. A human. Who licks their eyeballs. Not being able to do so is now considered weird, according to science.
…what? Those lizard people suck at science then. Doing research requires you to get a sample size that broadly encompasses everything. Specifically choosing your sample doesn’t hold up to modern scientific standards.
But what do we mean by “everybody”? That already depends on what the study tries to achieve in the first place. Let’s take your example of “can humans lick their eyeballs” and add the extra issue in there of human/lizard crossbreeds being a thing. In this case, you would have to take a sample of humans, lizards and everything in between. With that, you could create a dataset of who can and can’t, and would probably come to the conclusion that the more lizard-like someone is, the more likely they are to be able to lick their eyeballs.
Following along that, assuming that lizards count as human, it would mean that there is no clear average of eyeball licking capability and would therefore not factor in to if it is human or not. Just like there also isn’t an average skin color. Maybe a majority but it’s a distribution.
People, on average though, do have a working liver.
Specifically choosing your sample doesn’t hold up to modern scientific standards.
But we have to, no? Because we don’t want to include the featherless chicken, right? They even have one (or sometimes multiple) livers.
Maybe a majority but it’s a distribution.
You’re right, perhaps humans are just a cluster of datapoints on an x-dimensional chart, but if we want to calculate an average of that, we are still going to need to draw a border around it, because we don’t want to include all living things.
But we have to, no? Because we don’t want to include the featherless chicken, right? They even have one (or sometimes multiple) livers.
Then they share that trait with a human and are therefore x% similar to humans. perfectly acceptable. I’m not saying “liver = human”, i’m saying that a liver usually is one of many traits of the average modern societal human.
Choosing a dataset should be done in regards to what it is more relevant for.
If your dataset is good then drawing the circle smaller or bigger won’t effect the result too much.
Edit: even better than drawing a circle, weighting for the relevance of xzy in your data
I suppose I’m confused; earlier you suggested to philosophically come up with a definition for humans, and then put them on a scientific scale of how much they match that definition.
Specific context
In that sense, it scientifically very much is possible and plausible for something to be scientifically more and less human on a scale in comparison to what philosophy says a human is.
Would this mean that you redact that, or are you saying that my examples of genetic similarity and number of body parts are terrible for measuring this?
If you’re not redacting to suggest to measure humanness on a “scientific” scale, what other metrics would come to mind?
Or do just mean that humanness should only be measured subjectively, perhaps by some philosopher, who may then declare something to be x% on some scale?
And now i’m confused too because I never suggested using a scientific way to essentially replace philosophy for a definition of a human… It’s just two different ways of coming up with a definition. For ease of humanity, we have come up with a black and white definition of things. This is a human, this is a monkey, this is male and this is female. We just break this kind of definition and it can be pretty hurtful to us.
Also you don’t have to be a philosopher to philosophize about things. Everybody’s philosophy of what is human, what is x, what is y and so on is extremely individual.
My intent with all of this was to express how in my view, science is objective and not subjective.
Yes absolutely. The scientific human is the current average. In a sense, how scientifically close to one is could be better described as how close to the average human one is. And in that sense, nobody is the scientific human. Nobody actually is the average.
Yep, there’s where philosophy starts.
Well, through a turn of events the entire group of scientists who were put in charge of finding out what the average of human is are all lizardpeople. They think that being able to lick your eyeballs is an essential part of human. So when they were recruiting their subjects they have only been choosing those who can lick their eyeballs.
So they make a scan of all of their subjects and crunch through the numbers and come up with the average. This average sure is objective, but the group they’ve sampled obviously isn’t.
But well, this average now has been accepted as the scientific human. A human. Who licks their eyeballs. Not being able to do so is now considered weird, according to science.
…what? Those lizard people suck at science then. Doing research requires you to get a sample size that broadly encompasses everything. Specifically choosing your sample doesn’t hold up to modern scientific standards.
But what do we mean by “everybody”? That already depends on what the study tries to achieve in the first place. Let’s take your example of “can humans lick their eyeballs” and add the extra issue in there of human/lizard crossbreeds being a thing. In this case, you would have to take a sample of humans, lizards and everything in between. With that, you could create a dataset of who can and can’t, and would probably come to the conclusion that the more lizard-like someone is, the more likely they are to be able to lick their eyeballs.
Following along that, assuming that lizards count as human, it would mean that there is no clear average of eyeball licking capability and would therefore not factor in to if it is human or not. Just like there also isn’t an average skin color. Maybe a majority but it’s a distribution.
People, on average though, do have a working liver.
Edit: my point still stands but fuck I can’t read
But we have to, no? Because we don’t want to include the featherless chicken, right? They even have one (or sometimes multiple) livers.
You’re right, perhaps humans are just a cluster of datapoints on an x-dimensional chart, but if we want to calculate an average of that, we are still going to need to draw a border around it, because we don’t want to include all living things.
Then they share that trait with a human and are therefore x% similar to humans. perfectly acceptable. I’m not saying “liver = human”, i’m saying that a liver usually is one of many traits of the average modern societal human.
Choosing a dataset should be done in regards to what it is more relevant for.
If your dataset is good then drawing the circle smaller or bigger won’t effect the result too much.
Edit: even better than drawing a circle, weighting for the relevance of xzy in your data
I’m not sure if it would be desirable to categorise people like that, like to be able to say someone is x% human. It would either be
And that’s exactly why we use subjective philosophy to define a human instead
I suppose I’m confused; earlier you suggested to philosophically come up with a definition for humans, and then put them on a scientific scale of how much they match that definition.
Specific context
Would this mean that you redact that, or are you saying that my examples of genetic similarity and number of body parts are terrible for measuring this?
If you’re not redacting to suggest to measure humanness on a “scientific” scale, what other metrics would come to mind?
Or do just mean that humanness should only be measured subjectively, perhaps by some philosopher, who may then declare something to be x% on some scale?
And now i’m confused too because I never suggested using a scientific way to essentially replace philosophy for a definition of a human… It’s just two different ways of coming up with a definition. For ease of humanity, we have come up with a black and white definition of things. This is a human, this is a monkey, this is male and this is female. We just break this kind of definition and it can be pretty hurtful to us.
Also you don’t have to be a philosopher to philosophize about things. Everybody’s philosophy of what is human, what is x, what is y and so on is extremely individual.
My intent with all of this was to express how in my view, science is objective and not subjective.