I like the fish and whale and border examples. The ancient Jewish fish / land distinction makes sense and there was no reason why it shouldnt be so if it was the most helpful separation for their needs or at least if taxonomy by habitat had no disadvantages. The peanut is a legume but it doesnt affect our day to days lives not to know that isnt a nut. Although I dont think any complex phylogenetics and evolutionary theory would have been needed to explain why a whale was more similar to a cow. Pointing out that it gave birth to live young which was suckl
I don't often post to public forums about topics like this, but from reading the FAQ I believe I'm supposed to point out poor arguments where they show up. Sorry I know this thread is very old but if I go around recommended articles on this site then I can't in good conscience not point out the number of logical leaps you've made in this response. Many of these were pointed out by An_Amazing_Login but she was understandably upset about the whole thing. I have no personal stake in the politics at hand, this is mostly just a rational rebuttal.
Firstly, I think its easy enough to point out this bad-faith argument-
"This is a very worrying example. For in fact there was such an operation and it may have even got a Nobel prize. It was called the frontal lobotomy and in an age before anti psychotics it was a very useful operations allowing schizophrenic and manic patients to live perfectly peaceable lives no longer confined to the asylums." While that's true, it's also functionally irrelevant to the topic at hand. Medical ethics have advanced rather far since the age of the lobotomy and clearly Mr. Alexander wasn't referring to a horrifically damaging procedure in his offhand example of why low-cost treatments to debilitating psychological conditions would be nice. I imagine the obvious counterexample would be to say "nobody thought lobotomies were unethical when they were performed on marginalized people and yet they still destroyed people's lives. Perhaps most doctors don't think sex-change operations are unethical now but in 50 years we will consider the cutting-off-of-penis surgery (not mentioning the converse because you seem fixated on this one) to be highly unethical as well. I would consider that a good-faith argument, and I think the easy answer of bringing up the virtual infinity of other medical procedures that could be considered highly unethical one day to be a good point to begin with in response.
Your argument on the proposed medical treatment for depres
I like the fish and whale and border examples. The ancient Jewish fish / land distinction makes sense and there was no reason why it shouldnt be so if it was the most helpful separation for their needs or at least if taxonomy by habitat had no disadvantages. The peanut is a legume but it doesnt affect our day to days lives not to know that isnt a nut. Although I dont think any complex phylogenetics and evolutionary theory would have been needed to explain why a whale was more similar to a cow. Pointing out that it gave birth to live young which was suckl