Keith_Elis comments on Extensions and Intensions - Less Wrong

32 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 February 2008 09:34PM

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Comment author: Keith_Elis 05 February 2008 02:28:26PM 1 point [-]

These last couple of posts on definitions have been very good.

Another definitional strategy prone to abuse is coinage or creation of neologisms, sometimes used to sneak assumptions into a debate that would require significant support otherwise.

For one example, I have noticed the use of the term 'technoscience' or 'technoscientific' in rhetoric concerning science and technology. The use of this term is striking given the pretty obvious differences between science and technology as domains and activities in the real world. One must be making a very imprecise point for it to apply equally well to both science and technology in one breath. Use of this term might be nothing more than a symptom of this imprecision, but can also be thought of as stipulating an unsupported conclusion in itself. That is, anyone meeting the argument on its terms implicitly agrees that technology and science are identical for purposes of reasoning about them.

There are many other examples, I'm sure.