And it sounds so much more erudite that way

Ha! It looks like math, what with all the pi's, phi's, chi's and whatnot, but without those marks that tell you when you're plussing or minussing something.

Its always interesting to look at a completely foreign alphabet. It gives me a feeling for what it must be like to be illiterate, and shows me the value of my own literacy that much more.

uh, it's all Greek to me!

I wouldn't say greek is completely foreign. Considering the Latin alphabet is derived from some variant of Greek script and the maths connection. Especially in upper case.....
E.G.
A = A (alpha)
B = B (beta)
M = M (mu)
T = T (tau)
etc.....

The first time I went to Greece (Crete actually) I was surprised how quickly I picked up the language. I knew the sounds of the letters from Maths, and the meanings of many words from biology & especially from taxonomy. And Stephen J. Gould memorably pointed out that a trolley in a greek airport is called a 'metaphor'.
Happy New Year to you all by the way (this is from Scotland - new year is important here).

Babelfish isn't much help. It returns jumble of confusing words.

And Stephen J. Gould memorably pointed out that a trolley in a greek airport is called a 'metaphor'.

Was that in the same essay where he pointed out that a bus stop in Greek is "stasis"? Mr. Punctuated Equilibrium got a lot of mileage out of that one, as I recall.

it's the brilliant a courtier's reply.

Re #6,
Judge ye for yerselves.

I do kinda like the ring of this:

and this gentleman Nto'kjns is one rude tyha'rpastos who is deprived the spirit of my elegant circumlocutions,

Babel Fish Translation

In English:
The Answer of Courtier I have examined the impertinent categories of Mr Nto'kjns with indignation for the lack of his serious academic education. Obviously it has not read the in detail speeches of Earl Rontrj'gko of Sevilla for the chosen and exotic skins of footwears of emperor, neither gives thin attention in arjstoy'rgjma the Mpelj'nj, "Perj' the radiation djakosmime'noy with feathers of aytokratorjkoy' hat." We have entire schools dedicated in the writing of studied treatises perj' the wrajo'titas of amfj'esis of emperor, and every from the more major newspapers it has annex dedicated in the aytokratorjki' fashion. The Nto'kjns him rejects snobbish all these. Laugh even in the particularly popular and very persuasive arguments of his dear fellow-citizen, Lord Nt. T. Mokskrj'mpler, that as we know point out that the emperor could not wear common cotton, neither halepo' polyester, but he should, I say he should, he wears underwears from the leptepj'lepto silk. The Nto'kjns ignores arrogantly all these the vacysto'hastoys philosophical reasonings and accuses wma' the emperor for nakedness. Personally, ypobja'zomaj that perhaps the emperor it is not got dressed completely - that differently is explained the observed faculty of personnel in plystarjo' the palace - but, as na'hej, all the remainder world appears deals indeed with his clothes, and this gentleman Nto'kjns is one rude tyha'rpastos who is deprived the spirit of my elegant circumlocutions, in order that, while men I am unable I deal with the substance of his categories, it should at least him epjpli'xw for very his bad style. Until o'toy the Nto'kjns entryfi'sej in the shops of Paris and Milan, until o'toy learns the difference between soyfrwme'nis vra'kas and fardeja's pantalo'nas, it should all we consider that indeed it has not been expressed adversely in goy'sto the emperor. His training in the biology can men him give the possibility of recognizing genital bodies that kre'montaj, him it has not taught however the pre'poysa estimate of fantastjkw'n buckrams.

I wonder if 'the pre'poysa estimate of fantastjkw'n buckrams' might be considered evidence for Intelligent Design. It sounds fairly typical.
'Possibility of recognizing genital bodies' is completely Darwinian though.
Quotemining. Anyone can do it.

Stasis = bustop. That makes sense in a round-about way. I believe the syllable "sta" means position or place. Hence the English words (many borrowed of course):
Stable
Statement
State
Stadium
Statute
... et cetera

totally OT, but since this topic is, face it, pretty superficial, I though it might be about time for another thread debating the tactical value of holding up examples like Francis Collins as representative of "scientists that have resolved their personal conflicts between their 'faith' and their science".

evidently, some practical application has been made using the likes of Collins and Miller to fend off creationist attempts to take over various school districts, and to allay the fears of the simplistic that their kids "will go to hell" if they study evolution.

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/01/noma-in-ohio-re.html

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/11/noma-is-alive-a.html

I'm all for winning such battles, but I am worried that in kowtowing to pragmatic concerns, we will end up "framing" the actual science of evolutionary biology in a dishonest and confusing fashion.

I mean, has anyone here ever actually READ Collins' "Moral Law" argument??

is THAT what we want to represent as a "reconciliation between science and faith?"

I rather view it as a natural result of cognitive dissonance, myself, and worry greatly that I will have to explain to a batch of freshman bio students why Collins "Moral Law" argument has nothing to do with the actual application of evolutionary theory to studying behavior.

so, here's encouraging PZ, now that the hollidays are over, to revisit this issue, yet again, as it seems timely based on the approach many appear to favor in order to win the small battles being fought in various school districts around the country.

just to be clear; i DO understand the value of a tactical approach in this culture war, I just don't think we should abandon reason in favor of pragmatism along the way.

I mean, has anyone here ever actually READ Collins' "Moral Law" argument??
No, but the term "Moral law" makes me queezy.

No, but the term "Moral law" makes me queezy.

to save the trouble of having to locate a copy of his book, I refer you instead to a good review:

http://www.talkreason.org/articles/Theistic.cfm

scroll down to:

The Irreducibly Complex Moral Law

(make sure you have an empty stomach?)

A couple physicist friends were vacationing on one of the
Greek islands. They were having no luck deciphering the breakfast menu, until they realized they were looking at a phonetic spelling of an English word:

kappa, omega, rho, nu, phi, lambda, epsilon, ksi

Trivia: Ρίτσαρντ Ντόκινς = Richard Dawkins.

Modern Greek has softened the consonants so that Beta is always pronounced "v" and Delta is always pronounced as a voiced "th" (as in "that").

So when they want to represent a hard "B" sound as in English, it's spelled "μπ" ("mu-pi","mp"), and a hard "D" sound as in English is spelled "ντ" ("nu-tau","nt").

Hence the "Nto'kjns" above.

Languages evolve, and sometimes come up with solutions that would be counterintuitive in other languages.

Αυταπάτη = Delusion, obviously

I just read the Moral law argument. Wow, it's amazing how religion can warp a mind. He rejects creationism, then uses the same logic for his moral argument. Evolution created us, but god gave us morality, ergo god exists, and we're better than animals that are the products of the same evolutionary process as ourselves. Sheesh!

kappa, omega, rho, nu, phi, lambda, epsilon, ksi
Korn Fleks?

Sorry I can't comment in Greek.
However it is amazing to me that someone such as Collins, who understands at the deepest of levels the common origins of humans and chimpanzees, based on his familiarity of their genetics and DNA, could reject out of hand the continuum that exists in the evolution of their behaviors.
How can he know what he knows and still claim a God given moral superiority of humans over other animals. What a powerful parasitic meme is religion that it is even able to infect such a mind as his.

Since I know Greek, as a service to Pharyngula readers, here's my translation of the intro and the last lines:

"I'm translating a superb article with the title "The Reply of the Courtier" which was published about a year ago in the blog Pharyngula, where Mr. PZ Myers categorizes under this title many of the critiques of the book "About the Delusion of God" by Richard Dawkins, observing the common thread among them.

In order to help us understand the choice of title, he notes this hilarious little story:"

......

"Excellent, no?

Read more about the popular delusion that's called religion:"
_________________________________________

I just read the Moral law argument. Wow, it's amazing how religion can warp a mind. He rejects creationism, then uses the same logic for his moral argument. Evolution created us, but god gave us morality, ergo god exists, and we're better than animals that are the products of the same evolutionary process as ourselves. Sheesh!

exactly, but what I am really worried about is educators using Collins as an icon of "reconciliation" when he is really not much better than Behe in that regard (even educators who apparently can readily identify the weaknesses in his arguments to begin with).

IOW, he fully accepts some evidence and entirely rejects that which conflicts with his "religious sensibilities".

It's worrisome.

last I'm going to say on the subject in this thread, as it really is terribly OT.

I'm debating Richard Hoppe over on PT should anyone care to chime in there. so far, my fears have not been allayed, but at least Richard admits Collins is full of crap.

this entirely relates to the issue of "framing" that we have discussed on several occasions here.

I don't know Aris,

Read more about the popular delusion that's called religion:"

Don't you think Zeus and some of the other Olympians might get upset about that?

Owlmirror @#16:
Thanks for that explanation. I'd been wondering why Diagoras had "Ntokins" all over the place, when Greek has perfectly good deltas.

re #15 cornflakes!

re #19 aris, pretty good!

re #3 more trivia: when greeks don't understand something, obviously it can't be greek to them. it's therfore chinese.

Since the post references the blog as such, and since you folks are interested in politics as well, here are latest and historic results from Iowa:

Obama 37.36; Edwards 29.97; Clinton 29.45
Huckabee 34; Romney 25; Thompson 14; McCain 13%; Paul 10%

How do you like that, Knucklebee in first, interesting implications about Republican voters.

Epikt @#15:

until they realized they were looking at a phonetic spelling of an English word:

kappa, omega, rho, nu, phi, lambda, epsilon, ksi

I had the opposite experience once: my family and I were vacationing in England, and the waitress at a bed & breakfast spoke to us in what I can only assume was English, but we didn't understand a word of it.

Just to make something clear, "Moral Law" should not make people queasy.. except when used by people who aren't using it properly (Theists, using it to mean "God's Law" [which really just means whatever they happen to THINK is God's Law, which doesn't make anything moral ANYWAY]).

The Moral Law is a philosophical term largely used by Kant to refer to the implications of his theory (based on a rational morality, not on religion), see: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/#DutResMorLaw

"Corn Flakes" transliterated into:

Корн Флекс (Cyrillic)

Κωρν Φλεξ (Greek)

I think it's clear where old St. Cyril was coming from.

"Рычард Докинс" = "Richard Dawkins"

That's pretty straightforward compared to the Greek, but Cyrillic has equivalent shorcomings and quirks: There is no "j", no short "u", no long "i" as we know it in English, so a word like "justify" transliterates to джастыфай (d+zh+a+s+t+ih+f+a+y, where "zh" is the last sound in the word "garage" and "a+y" sounds like "eye" or "aye").

Kseniya / Ксения / Xenia / ξενία

Theists, using it to mean "God's Law" and that's why it makes me queezy. And that's how Collins used it.

Brian, fair enough, just wanted to clear it up... We philosophers get a bad enough rap from scientists as it is... had to make sure people didn't think Kant (though religious) was as batty as Collins. :-)

Erudite, erudite, who wants to be ERUDITE?

Now getting translated into Pig Latin, that would be cool.

This was fun, although my Greek reading is rusty. definitely an awkward alphabet.

I would not call it erudite- this is New Greek. Get someone to translate the piece into ancient Greek and then we're talking.

New Greek is a crude Balkan language, much like my native Bulgarian. So not courtier-like...

I believe the syllable "sta" means position or place.

Ever wondered about the English word stand?

It's an Indo-European affair.

Hey PZ & fellow squid lovers -- ever tried doing a blog search on pharyngula "supersquid"?

Brian @11,

what David said @32. Don't have the right sort of dictionary to hand, by I'm fairly certain that all the examples you cite derive, directly or indirectly, from the Latin stare; which is surely cognate with the Greek στασις and, as David notes, lots of other IE words as well.

completely off topic, but has anyone seen this?:
http://www.uncommondescent.com/darwinalia/panda-monium.swf

it seems like some sort of anger management toy for Dembski and co to take out their collective pent-up frustration. you can practically smell the angry self-loathing.

hilarious all the same. "think tank" ha.

And the English word "station," as in "bus-station," is from the same root--full circle back to "stasis."

@ Alex, #35:

First of all... no, I hadn't seen that, and am now dumber for having clicked on it.

Second, what on earth are we doing trolling that stupid website? It registers traffic on their servers and gives them confidence that people are listening to their idiocy.

And English "stand" is used as a noun as well as a verb, like in "newsstand".

"Pharyngula" is a modern coinage, from Greek "pharynx" ("throat") and the Latin diminutive suffix -ula (also -ulus and -ulum).

Curiously, some other Greek words for various noisemakers have -ynx or -inx: "larynx" (voicebox), "syrinx" (panpipes), and "salpinx" (trumpet).

Spinoza,

what on earth are we doing trolling that stupid website? It registers traffic on their servers and gives them confidence that people are listening to their idiocy.

hell, i'm just visiting to get the high score on the panda game.

Curiously, some other Greek words for various noisemakers have -ynx or -inx: "larynx" (voicebox), "syrinx" (panpipes), and "salpinx" (trumpet).

Also "phorminx" (a type of lute mentioned by Homer).

Interestingly (or not), IIRC none of these words is a native Greek term (they lack convincing Greek or Indo-European etymologies); they were apparently all borrowed, probably from a substrate or neighboring language where "ynx/inx" had a meaning having to do with sound.

I was going to try to translate the Courtier's Reply into Klingon, but that's a time-consuming task I'm not quite up for. I can, however, translate "Too Many Tribbles":

wa' yIH

Literally, this is "one tribble", but as we who remember our classic Trek all know, Klingons hate tribbles, so one tribble is too many. Klingon "y" sounds like ours, "I" is the short "i" of "hit", and "H" has the sound of German "ch" in "Bach", so the word for tribble exactly captures Klingons' feelings about the little furballs. (Marc Okrand, who invented the language, is fond of little jokes like this; one of my favorites is the word for "fish", ghotI.)

Hello, gentlemen, it is a nice discussion that you have going on here. I am Diagoras, the Greek guy who made the post which is being discussed here.

My friend Simon ruined my day yesterday by telling me that "The Courtier's Reply" has already been published in Greek, since it was included in the foreword to the 2nd edition of "The God Delusion", which has been translated and published in Greece. I did not know that, since I have not read the Greek version of the book. (I have only listened to the unabridged audiobook version in English.) In any case, I guess it is good to have "The Courtier's Reply" posted (and therefore searchable) on the Greek-speaking internet (and in as many languages as possible, for that matter.) Luckily, the "King is Naked" metaphor is known in Greece, and I would assume that the same holds true for large parts of the planet.

For those of you who toyed with Altavista's Babelfish, I ought to tell you that although not completely useless, machine translation today is largely a testament to how it does not really work, and nor will it any time in the foreseeable future. At best, it can be helpful for getting a (laughable) "first draft" of a document for a capable human translator to work on (and rewrite in the process.)

For those of you who dealt with etymological issues, of the words Stable, Statement, State, Stadium and Statute only Stadium traces back directly into Greek; the rest are Latin words, and are related to Greek only via their common Indo-European root "sta", as David Marjanović correctly pointed out. Now, the weird thing with "Stasis" and "Stadium" is that they are derived from "sta" by way of the ancient Greek verb "ίστημι", which would probably be transliterated as "histimi", which means "to stand" and from which we derive a multitude of other words, like our word "ιστός", ("tissue",) which gives the medical prefixes hist- and histo-, (but has nothing to do with either "history" nor "isthmus",) and even our word "επιστήμη", ("science",) which manifests itself in English in words like "epistemic" and "epistemology". There is a great wealth of interesting stuff you can dig up when you look into the origins of words if you happen to know Greek, provided that you know when to stop, as the word "kimono" very aptly demonstrates. (See "My Big Fat Greek Wedding".)

I believe the syllable "sta" means position or place.

Ever wondered about the English word stand?

It's an Indo-European affair.