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Friday, March 29th, 2002 01:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinturnerFound this in kiad's userinfo (I don't know whether she agrees with it or not - probabaly not, judging by the other quotations)
Typical psychologist reaction. They're stuck with a pre-paradigmatic science, so they sling mud at anything that sound unempirical. Physicists don't have this inferiority complex, and so don't slag off philosophy.
The motto of the Royal Society of London is 'Nullius in verba' : trust not in words. Observation and experiment are what count, not opinion and introspection. Few working scientists have much respect for those who try to interpret nature in metaphysical terms. For most wearers of white coats, philosophy is to science as pornography is to sex: it is cheaper, easier, and some people seem, bafflingly, to prefer it. Outside of psychology it plays almost no part in the functions of the research machine.''
(Steve Jones, University College, London)
From his review of How the Mind Works (by Steve Pinker) in The New York Review of Books (pages 13-14) November 6, 1997.
Typical psychologist reaction. They're stuck with a pre-paradigmatic science, so they sling mud at anything that sound unempirical. Physicists don't have this inferiority complex, and so don't slag off philosophy.
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Re: science & philosophy
Date: 2002-03-29 12:19 am (UTC)Romance novels use the word "member"
and erotic novels use the word "cock".
Re: science & philosophy
Date: 2002-03-29 02:19 am (UTC)Actually, a friend of mine once considered writing historical romances as a way of making some money (it pays pretty well if you can manage to get the formula right) and researched the kind of vocabulary she would need. What she found was that while there were lots of words for different parts of the female body, the penis was rarely referred to specifically, even by euphemisms such as "member" or "manhood". Rather, the male body as a whole was a metaphorical penis, e.g. "Lord Darcy stood erect, the blood pounding through him."
Re: science & philosophy
Date: 2002-03-29 02:29 am (UTC)Re: science & philosophy
Date: 2002-03-29 02:18 pm (UTC)Re: science & philosophy
Date: 2002-03-29 03:03 pm (UTC)Re: science & philosophy
Date: 2002-03-29 03:23 pm (UTC)I've read some more appealing ways of describing acts involving the male reproductive organ. Not in Chinese though, as I don't read Chinese - erotica or the language in general. heh.
But I must emphatically state that I do NOT think the word "cock" is romantic, sexy, a turn-on, inviting, appealing, alluring, flattering to those who have the genitalia referred to, and it most certainly does not put me in the mood to have that particular item of the male anatomy inserted into any orafice of my anatomy, and it definitely doesn't appeal to me to hear the word "cock" used in describing the sexual escapades of others - fictional or real.
I wouldn't even use the word "cock" in referring if I was talking about filthy feathered male lifestock.
Indeed, this is a rare occasion when I could be seen to type the very word, as I never use it, for real. heh.
Re: science & philosophy
Date: 2002-03-29 04:14 pm (UTC)BTW, Turkish has a range of words, depending on size and maturity.
There are also some nice idioms; for example, "sikimde degil" = "not in my penis" = "I couldn't care less"; "sikine takma" = "don't attach it to your penis" = "don't worry about it."
Re: science & philosophy
Date: 2002-03-29 04:30 pm (UTC)"don't attach it to your penis"
That's an excellent one. I might say that to some men I know when the opportunity, ahem, arises.