semantics
awild | February 3, 2010...are at it again:
The twilight zone:
ambient light levels trigger activity in primitive ants
What's unfortunate about this title is that the judgement "primitive" has nothing to do with the research. It is unnecessary. The study is about how one species of ant uses ambient light levels to trigger foraging. It's a nicely done bit of work. But whether or not these ants are "primitive" has zilch to do with the science.
Back in the day, western anthropologists would study Primitive Culture. Such terms are no longer used in that field, and for good reason. It's not just that labeling other…
amillikan | January 6, 2009Recently, a discussion has sparked on ScienceBlogs over how the word "addiction," could be used to describe some substances that aren't necessarily harmful such as antidepressants. Scicurious from Neurotopia points out that if a substance changes one's physical self, there will be physical effects if that drug is discontinued—a property of addiction. Likewise, PalMD from Denialism Blog suspects the negative nature of the word "addiction" may make drug companies hesitant to describe their products as such, even though it's accurate.
awild | November 10, 2008Neivamyrmex army ants attacking a pavement ant, California
I see this morning that Daniel Kronauer has published a review of army ant biology in Myrmecological News. The paper, among other topics, attempts to straighten out some key terminology:
AenEcDo army ant: a connotation free abbreviation that is introduced here to avoid the term "true" army ant. It collectively refers to species in the three subfamilies Aenictinae, Ecitoninae, and Dorylinae and is strictly taxonomically defined.
Army ant: any ant species with the army ant adaptive syndrome.
Army ant adaptive syndrome: a life-history…
developingintelligence | October 3, 2007Ambiguity is a constant problem for any embodied cognitive agent with limited resources. Decisions need to be made, and their consequences understood, despite the probabilistic veil of uncertainty enveloping everything from sensory input to action execution. Clearly, there must be mechanisms for dealing with or resolving such ambiguity.
A nice sample domain for understanding ambiguity resolution is language, where problems of uncertainty have been long appreciated. The meaning of words in general (not to mention referents like "that" or "he") can be highly ambiguous (see "the gavagai…