[Taxacom] teleology example

[Curtis Clark]

On 2013-03-08 6:03 PM, John Grehan wrote:
>
>     John, we know that you have a penchant for hunting out things in the
>     literature that you can re-interpret, 
>
>
> So I reinterpret purpose for purpose?

You reinterpreted it on purpose, to make a point about teleology that 
the blog you referred to did not fully exemplify.

>     so you are here true to form. What
>     appalls me is all the other Taxacomers who want to pile on.
>
>
> Pile on what?

Pile on the author of the blog, inferring additional attributes of his 
mental state by interpreting his writing in the context of a preexisting 
agenda, and attributing sinister implications to common English figures 
of speech, and devices of rhetoric, such as synecdoche. And doing all 
this prior to any indication that he would ever know about it and be 
able to defend himself (if he should even care to).

Perhaps we need a new sport: Each week someone (it doesn't have to be 
John, but he has an aptitude) can find something written in the 
systematic literature (sensu lato) by a non-member of Taxacom (that part 
is important) and all the rest of us who care to participate can 
criticize the author on the basis of phrasing in the specific work, 
independent of the author's body of work or the larger biological 
context in which the work was written. Sort of a deconstructionism for 
biologists.

-- 
Curtis Clark        http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark
Biological Sciences                   +1 909 869 4140
Cal Poly Pomona, Pomona CA 91768