Monday Rant: Undefined

There are a number of words in the English language that I do not have functional definitions for. Other people apparently either DO have functional definitions for these words, or do not but just fake it because they think other people do. Both situations frustrate me endlessly.

1. Nature

Seriously, I have no idea what you mean when you use this word or any of its derivations (natural, unnatural, etc). I first realized that I'd been faking it with "nature" when a friend-of-a-friend told me her principle objection to nuclear power (for electricity generation) was that it "seems so unnatural". WTF? Radioisotopes decay, converting a tiny fraction of their mass into energy, which can be used to generate electricity for human uses. What's unnatural about that? I DON'T UNDERSTAND. If I had a working definition of the term (either "natural" or "unnatural"; I could derive the other from one), perhaps I could choose to either agree or disagree with your objection to nuclear power. But I don't understand what you're trying to say.

2. Tradition

Again, this plus the common derivations. My main problem with "tradition" is that it seems (though I am unsure) so arbitrary. Every time someone uses this word in my presence, I immediately wonder: how old? I've seen people refer to modern, evidence-based medical practice as "traditional Western medicine", possibly (am I wrong? I don't know!) because their favoured alternative (there's always a favoured alternative) is something they themselves met in life AFTER they met the dominant form of medical attention found in certain countries (i.e. the OECD). The real confusion arises when that same person starts talking about their favoured alternative, which is most often either much older a concept than the roughly-150-years-old "let's actually look at some evidence, maybe" approach of "western medicine", and / or is referred to as "traditional", itself - for example, the much-discussed "traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)". Tell me why behaviour X gains the benefit of the label "tradition" but behaviour Y, of similar antiquity, geographic origin, or evidence-of-non-crazy-thought (or lack thereof) does not. Prime example: acupuncture is widely touted as some revolutionary form of great idea. Then, in the same breath, it's described as traditional - people did it long ago, therefore it's a tradition (never mind the contrast between "revolutionary" and "traditional"). Or something. Then, it's compared favourably to "traditional Western approaches to healing" or some such. If both things get the label "traditional", but one is good and the other is bad, how does that label contribute anything? To further pile it on, I am quite certain that some ancient (i.e. dead) practitioners of acupuncture also bound the feet of young girls, practiced sex-specific infanticide, shunned (or worse) rape victims, divorced women, and widows, and conducted other behaviour that we now consider unacceptable. I am NOT implying a correlation or causative relationship between acupuncture and overt sexual discrimination; I am questioning why one old thing is considered good because of its age and not another. Is that just how people use it? Is "traditional" just a fancy short-hand for "older than I am"?

3. Justice

I'd make a terrible lawyer, because I cannot define a core concept of their profession*. My confusion primarily arises from the, let's say "contrast" rather than "hypocrisy" or "schizophrenia", of the two main expressions of justice. On the one hand, we have people who talk about revenge for crimes and so on. So, is "justice" just a synonym for "revenge", perhaps with a hint of "allowed by authority"? No, because on the other hand we have people who talk about crime deterence and prevention, and odd psuedo-psychological concepts like "closure", and expressely distance themselves from "revenge". But, often these people are one and the same individuals expressing both, mutually-contradictory statements. And the context of such discussions is very often political, suggesting a cynical pandering to the stupid (vengeful) masses by individuals attempting to curry favour with the (stupid, vengeful) public. Does "justice" have a definition that clearly distinguishes it from other human behaviours?

4. Complex

This one is a real minefield, because I do have a functional definition for it: a system can be said to be complex in contrast to a simple system, if it demonstrates a greater number and variety of interacting parts. But, very rarely do I see "complex" used in situations where such is clearly true. The prime example comes from my own research. Many, many times I have seen discussions of genome size in the context of organismal complexity. For those unfamiliar with what I do, briefly, genome size, or the amount of DNA per cell in organisms, varies enormously between species. Some things have very small genomes, others very large. This is referred to as the genome size enigma, because it's an interesting problem (why is this variation present?) without an obvious simple answer. So, lots of people think they've solved the problem, by invoking complexity. Hey, things with big genomes must be more complex - they need more DNA to have more genes doing more things in a more complex system. OK - if that's true, and demonstrably complex things do have more DNA, then the enigma is solved. It's not true, for two reasons: first, more DNA does not mean more genes; larger genomes have more non-coding DNA but approximately the same number of protein-coding genes as smaller genomes (this is why it's the genome-size enigma and no longer the genome-size paradox) (see also the Onion test). Second, nobody advancing such an hypothesis has ever (in my opinion) clearly demonstrated a gradient of complexity between organisms. I find it highly suspicious that such schemes always seem to end up with humans on top - the old "great chain of being" that Stephen J. Gould has railed against so well in so many essays and books.
I've seen some attempts at showing this complexity gradient. The closest to convincing was one that described the number of different cell types in different organisms. Most bacteria had only one cell type, but some had two or three, depending on whether you agree that a resting cyst is functionally distinct from a normal cell (I agree). Various animals had larger numbers of cell types, culminating (of course) in mammals (including humans) with a large number of cell types. So, we're more complex than Drosophila melanogaster, possibly only by virtue of the fine parsing of cell types in our immune systems. But, D. melanogaster is an holometabolous insect - it undergoes complete metamorphosis, from larva (maggot) through pupa to adult (like butterflies). That's a huge shift in morphology and physiology, compared to humans that just get bigger, with a little allometry thrown in for interest. And I've seen descriptions of entire groups of animals as "relatively simple direct and nearly-direct developers", including arthropods! By some descriptions, even holometabolous insects are pretty direct in their development because they don't throw away nearly all their cells during metamorphosis, and occupy a similar environment and niche (things that eat things) - there are far weirder developmental modes than "eat like crazy, grow, then get sexy".

Anyway, I seem to have wandered off on a tangent, so I'll stop here. I'll probably encounter and rant about other words sooner or later.

* Insert lawyer joke here. Then express sympathy for the statement "let's kill all the lawyers, kill them tonight". Then go fucking read and understand the Shakespear play that first published that statement.