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submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by TotallynotJessica to c/transmemes
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[-] waldfee@feddit.org 1 points 2 weeks ago

I'm not sure if it would be desirable to categorise people like that, like to be able to say someone is x% human. It would either be

  • meaningless, like how the dna of most people is 99.9% the same
  • misleading, like how human dna is 50-60% the same as a banana
  • or downright offensive, if we said that a person without legs is only 70% human
[-] SquishedFly 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

And that's exactly why we use subjective philosophy to define a human instead

[-] waldfee@feddit.org 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I suppose I'm confused; earlier you suggested to philosophically come up with a definition for humans, and then put them on a scientific scale of how much they match that definition.

Specific context

In that sense, it scientifically very much is possible and plausible for something to be scientifically more and less human on a scale in comparison to what philosophy says a human is.

Would this mean that you redact that, or are you saying that my examples of genetic similarity and number of body parts are terrible for measuring this?

If you're not redacting to suggest to measure humanness on a "scientific" scale, what other metrics would come to mind?

Or do just mean that humanness should only be measured subjectively, perhaps by some philosopher, who may then declare something to be x% on some scale?

[-] SquishedFly 1 points 1 week ago

And now i'm confused too because I never suggested using a scientific way to essentially replace philosophy for a definition of a human... It's just two different ways of coming up with a definition. For ease of humanity, we have come up with a black and white definition of things. This is a human, this is a monkey, this is male and this is female. We just break this kind of definition and it can be pretty hurtful to us.

Also you don't have to be a philosopher to philosophize about things. Everybody's philosophy of what is human, what is x, what is y and so on is extremely individual.

My intent with all of this was to express how in my view, science is objective and not subjective.

[-] waldfee@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago

science is objective and not subjective.

That's what I've been disagreeing with. Science is not objective, it's only approaching objectivity at best, while concealing subjectivity at worst. The only objective thing we have is math. Mathematicians have spent hundreds of pages to prove that 1+1=2, but even for fundamental things like gravity that just isn't possible. You can observe them, you can build models to predict them, you can test that these models work, but you cannot prove that they do. And just because scientists work to the best of their knowledge and belief, doesn't mean that their formalized perceptions of reality suddenly become objective. Just because some biologists noticed that some phenotypes correlate with certain other phenotypes, doesn't mean that sexual dimorphism is an irrefutable truth. In objective reality it's all just a bunch of atoms wiggeling about, though this perspective isn't actually useful for us, which is why it's a good thing that science is subjective, because only then is it of any use to us. The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error.

[-] SquishedFly 1 points 1 week ago

You can observe them, you can build models to predict them, you can test that these models work, but you cannot prove that they do.

What do you define as proof then?

If scientist 1 can do an experiment the scientist 2, 3, 4, ... can do the same experiment under the same circumstances, then that means that it is true that the experiment will always result in x data.

this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2026
535 points (100.0% liked)

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