Reach out and touch science
I was perusing Something Awful and stumbled upon a thread called "What are the 'truths' you've learned about the major you've chosen?"
- "There is a doctor in the house." is not nearly as simple a sentence as you think it is.
- In the process of your education, you will learn all sorts of fascinating things about how the English language is constructed and how it conveys meaning. Of course, when you do your own writing, you will immediately rely on instinct and routine and forget everything you've learned.
- There's nothing that pisses a TA off more than when half the class (or more) shows up without having read the material.
- English classes are the only ones where the bulk of your homework can be done while sitting on a bus or lying in bed.
- Satirists are into some freaky shit.
- Every written assignment (including exams) is not actually a mere test of English analysis, but a test of your knowledge of History, Sociology, Psychology, Urbanology, Linguistics, Philosophy, Fine Arts (Film, Music, Photography, Art), and Bullshit.
- Science majors look down on us but we think they're cool and want to be friends
I am totally in agreement with the last point. The others, too, but pretty much the one no one ever expects from an English major is the amount of respect we have for those in the science fields who look down on us.
Well, I guess I would be wrong if I said that all English majors respect the sciences; but for the most part, recent trends have been to work within the realms of the sciences, especially in terms of environmental criticism... And surprisingly the majority of the resistance comes from the sciences who don't want to dirty their hands with the liberal arts.
My father, a geophysicist, has a really hard time coming to grips with the fact that there is such a thing as Derridean slippage (the idea that one word can have exponential meanings and conjure countless metonymies) in his work.
But it's there.
There would be no need for things like "further research" or "scientific experiments" if there weren't slippage. And ironically, things like "further research" promote even more slippage - one hypothesis cannot be simply erased from memory or existence because another one is more plausible. We will continue to remember them, if we know about them, and they will be called into our frame of reference any time the conditions of the experiment are brought to our attention.
For example, creationism vs evolution. Both postulate on the development or creation of modern humans and are in contention with one another. However, and problematically, creationism is almost always thought of in terms of evolution. It is not just a concept, it's a concept in reaction to another concept. The two have to be simultaneously called to mind at once. Creationism is based on the idea that it is not evolution.
And even evolution itself is a loaded term - there are at least 6 different definitions for it. Plus, there are cultural understandings of evolution that have overtaken the actual scientific and dictionary meanings of the word.
tl;dr: Derridean slippage, indeed.
P.s. I don't like all these video ads on the Internet.
Here's a picture to make up for my science rant:
- "There is a doctor in the house." is not nearly as simple a sentence as you think it is.
- In the process of your education, you will learn all sorts of fascinating things about how the English language is constructed and how it conveys meaning. Of course, when you do your own writing, you will immediately rely on instinct and routine and forget everything you've learned.
- There's nothing that pisses a TA off more than when half the class (or more) shows up without having read the material.
- English classes are the only ones where the bulk of your homework can be done while sitting on a bus or lying in bed.
- Satirists are into some freaky shit.
- Every written assignment (including exams) is not actually a mere test of English analysis, but a test of your knowledge of History, Sociology, Psychology, Urbanology, Linguistics, Philosophy, Fine Arts (Film, Music, Photography, Art), and Bullshit.
- Science majors look down on us but we think they're cool and want to be friends
I am totally in agreement with the last point. The others, too, but pretty much the one no one ever expects from an English major is the amount of respect we have for those in the science fields who look down on us.
Well, I guess I would be wrong if I said that all English majors respect the sciences; but for the most part, recent trends have been to work within the realms of the sciences, especially in terms of environmental criticism... And surprisingly the majority of the resistance comes from the sciences who don't want to dirty their hands with the liberal arts.
My father, a geophysicist, has a really hard time coming to grips with the fact that there is such a thing as Derridean slippage (the idea that one word can have exponential meanings and conjure countless metonymies) in his work.
But it's there.
There would be no need for things like "further research" or "scientific experiments" if there weren't slippage. And ironically, things like "further research" promote even more slippage - one hypothesis cannot be simply erased from memory or existence because another one is more plausible. We will continue to remember them, if we know about them, and they will be called into our frame of reference any time the conditions of the experiment are brought to our attention.
For example, creationism vs evolution. Both postulate on the development or creation of modern humans and are in contention with one another. However, and problematically, creationism is almost always thought of in terms of evolution. It is not just a concept, it's a concept in reaction to another concept. The two have to be simultaneously called to mind at once. Creationism is based on the idea that it is not evolution.
And even evolution itself is a loaded term - there are at least 6 different definitions for it. Plus, there are cultural understandings of evolution that have overtaken the actual scientific and dictionary meanings of the word.
tl;dr: Derridean slippage, indeed.
P.s. I don't like all these video ads on the Internet.
Here's a picture to make up for my science rant: