Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2009 December 10

= December 10 =

Car manufacturers in Bangladesh
Which automobile manufacturers are being used by an average Bangladeshi? Honda? Toyota? Mazda? Nissan? MErcedes-Benz? BMW? Jaguar? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.14.116.24 (talk) 00:23, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Manufacturers include: Bajaj Auto, Premier Padmini, and Tata Motors. More information here here. I hope that helped. JW.. &#91; T .. C  &#93;  01:51, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The average Bangladeshi does not own or often travel in an automobile, unless you include buses. Marco polo (talk) 02:45, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * If they drove or owned an automobile, there is a good chance it would be built by one of those manufacturers. I do agree that the average Bangladeshi does not own an automobile. JW.. &#91; T .. C  &#93;  04:03, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Is there a reason they would prefer to buy Indian rather than from another Asian country? Is there a domestic automobile industry? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:20, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Price. DOR (HK) (talk) 07:00, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

No, I didn't ask if they own Indian cars. I meant to say that which automobile do they drive because I see they drive different cars that not seen in North America and the only time I have seen these cars in Bangladesh is when I watch Bangladeshi dramas and/or movies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.64.53.201 (talk) 15:05, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Correlational studies?
In a correlational study, why is it incorrect for a researcher to write about one variable producing changes in a second variable? What language would be preferable, in a research report? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joetrivium (talk • contribs) 04:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * You are asking why Correlation does not imply causation, aren't you? --Dr Dima (talk) 05:05, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, in part. The language to reflect conclusions is the main interest of mine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joetrivium (talk • contribs) 05:26, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Why do researchers use language that does not state causation when the study design does not provide any firm answers regarding causation? Because the researchers want to be truthful, or cynically, using causation language would get the paper rejected from reputable journals. What language is preferable...something to the effect of 'An increase in variable X is associated with an increase in variable Y' (for a positive correlation). Basically any phrasing that merely states that there is some sort of connection between changes in one variable with changes in the other variable(s) without implying that the first variable is the sole cause.--droptone (talk) 13:24, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Because research requires exceeding discernment + discrimination, the verbiage used to analyze, evaluate and determine proposed or discovered relationships or lack thereof in respect to, for example, the presence or absence of protein A and the proposed subsequent effect A' must tread lightly and not exceed the powers of deduction themselves. A great example is in a recent OPT study (Obstetric + Periodontal Therapy) in which pregnant human females exhibiting periodontal disease were either given periodontal therapy during the second trimester or a few weeks postpartum.  The results showed no significant difference between the test and control groups in terms of pre-term birth, and as such, the null hypothesis was unable to be rejected.  Even that concept -- rejection of the null hypothesis -- is a great item to study in terms of language used to reflect reality.  One can never prove the null hypothesis, one can only succeed  or fail to reject it.  The results of the OPT study, that the periodontal therapy made no statistical difference between the groups doesn't mean that periodontal therapy doesn't help, but that periodontal therapy as provided in this study doesn't help.  Therapy provided in the first trimester or even prenatally, or continual therapy provided over a long time (rather than just one time periodontal therapy) might provide a significant difference, but that wasn't what was tested.  Check out the articles on null hypothesis, sensitivity and specificity and other statistics related articles to see how language is used very precisely to express exactly what is meant.  DRosenbach  ( Talk 14:09, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The difference between correlation and causation is mechanism. In other words, before we can say "X causes Y" we must first be able to show the "method by which X causes Y".  For example, I can demonstrate that pushing the rightmost pedal down causes my car to go forward because I can trace a mechanism by which one event makes the other event happen; I can see how all the bits work together.  Likewise, we can say that "virus A causes disease B" because we can see how the virus operates in cells, what it does to the cells it enters, what changes it causes in the cells, and how those changes lead to symptoms in the host.  HOWEVER, for other things, such causations are not readily apparent.  For example, having a parent who died of cancer is correlated to you getting cancer yourself.  It is not readily apparent, however, by which mechanism the connection is made.  It could be genetic, for example the parent may have passed on a gene which leads to cancer in you.  It could be environmental, for example the parent and you presumably lived in the same environment for many years, and so shared the same sorts of contact with carcinogens.  It could be behavioral, for example you could have learned certain risky behaviors from your parent.  The deal is, none of these is strictly causitive in the sense that you parent's cancer made you have cancer too.  Its only correlative because there is a statistical coincidence in that cancer tends to run in families.  There is a fault in people drawing causitive conclusions from data which is only correlative.  -- Jayron  32  19:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Pradeshiya Sabha in Sri Lanka
According to Gampaha, a Pradeshiya Sabha is a "divisional council" in Sri Lanka, but there is nothing in Wikipedia about divisional councils, although this could be - or not be - related to Divisional Secretariats of Sri Lanka. I found the place in many places on the web, but I could find no definition. I found the word "pradeshiya" here in the Tamil translation of "divisional secretariats", but the following word is not "sabha", so I can guess there are probably divisional councils related to divisional secretariats, but I find it surprising that I can find no authoritative answer on the web. I didn't find relevant interwikis and I have no easy way of searching online or paper dictionaries for the moment. Apokrif (talk) 10:53, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * These are usually circular definitions, i.e. meanings are varied but are not obsolete. So you may want to check literature like devolution in the case of a devolved ligature, or ligature of administrative apparatuses in the case of an accord of federalism or quasi federalism.Couchworthy (talk) 19:02, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * A Pradeshiya Sabha is a Provincial Council (an elected body, as opposed to a government-appointed Secretariat), the ones mentioned here. We should definately have a Pradeshiya Sabha article. --Soman (talk) 22:55, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

First science fiction literature
Is Frankenstein first science fiction literature? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lit Scholar (talk • contribs) 13:53, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * History of science fiction, especially, probably, History_of_science_fiction. Some say yes. Some say no. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:59, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Brian Aldiss is probably one of the more vocal proponents and makes a good case in Billion Year Spree. Should be stuffed in my library somewhere. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 14:04, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Which is noted in the referenced article now that I read it. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 14:09, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * There's a certain case to be made for a book like Utopia, written by Thomas More in 1516, that it may qualify as a bit of "Proto-sci-fi" for the very sci-fi elements that it uses. If you consider that travel to the stars wasn't part of the 16th century worldview, then Utopia reads very much like science fiction.  The fact that it is forward looking as a book in terms of looking towards a more advanced sort of human society is why it is probably closer to sci-fi than fantasy, which as a genre is usually more backward looking.  The cite above from History of Science Fiction notes this as well.  -- Jayron  32  16:11, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Some might consider Gulliver's Travels to be SciFi. The predates Frankenstein by something like 100 years.  Googlemeister (talk) 16:59, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * If you want a journey to the moon almost a millennium and a half before Sir Thomas More, then look at Lucian of Samosata's True History... AnonMoos (talk) 20:39, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow, I did not know they had discovered "magic" mushrooms then. Googlemeister (talk) 21:28, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The discovery and regular use of such resources probably predates Homo sapiens as a species. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 01:35, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Plato wrote about Atlantis 500 years earlier. --Major Bonkers (talk) 06:55, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

rednecks and reverse parody
hello,

a friend argued that 'rednecks', the song by Randy Newman, is a reverse parody. Does a reverse parody exist, and if it does, what is it?

thank you, Whambarfoddbadseed

[lyrics removed]


 * Hi, you can't post the entire lyrics to a copyrighted song on Wikipedia. The Hero of This Nation (talk) 16:53, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * "Reverse parody" sounds like a meaningless phrase to me. Have you read our Rednecks (song) article?  Newman is tearing into Southerners but also into Northerners, and the possibly unreliable narrator makes it interesting.  The Parody article is probably a good read, too.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:41, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I think by 'reverse parody' the OP meant 'self parody' (where the author/singer parodies himself). The term is in the parody article you linked, Comet. --JoeTalkWork 03:48, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Good link. Of course, in this particular song, Newman isn't parodying himself.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:13, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Lead sentences in Nationalism article
A rather civil discussion at this article involves the first few sentences in the lead - that is, its definition (Talk:Nationalism). I'd like to see some good dictionaries' and encyclopedias' definitions there, rather than individual scholars' takes, preserving those in a subsequent dedicated section. Thoughts please. Novickas (talk) 17:47, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I would agree that the opening sentence should distill a few authoritative dictionary definitions. Of course, the problem with dictionary definitions is that dictionaries aim to isolate subtly different meanings of words, whereas what you want here is really what those definitions have in common.  I also agree that the opening sentence is problematic in citing just one possible meaning of the word, a meaning that, for example, excludes forms of nationalism among peoples who do not (yet) have their own state as well as forms of nationalism involving commitment to states (such as the United States) that lack an ethnic identity.  Here is a case where Wikipedia's often valuable insistence on attributing every statement to one or more reputable sources (and acceptance of any statement backed by a reputable source) can lead to problems.  Marco polo (talk) 18:53, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Nationalism can only be defined as a worldview that holds to the primacy of one's own nation and ferverent support for that nation. Any differing views on the definition of nationalism only arise from the problem with nailing down what a nation really is.  That is not an easy task of itself, however any definition of nationalism must contain the exact same sorts of gray areas that exist in the definition of a nation.  -- Jayron  32  19:40, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I think that Jayron is on the right track. The definition should reference the word nation.  Probably immediately after a couple of sentences laying out this general definition, the article should unpack the different meanings of the word nation and how they give rise to different varieties of nationalism.  Marco polo (talk) 20:11, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

'''This should not be discussed on the reference desk. It should be discussed on the talk page. Please take it there. DJ Clayworth (talk) 21:51, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Jayron32 seems to be describing the practice of nationalism, rather than its meaning. I would offer "Nationalism is the elevation of the nation(-state) above other possible contenders for loyalty, such as religion, class or community." DOR (HK) (talk) 01:06, 14 December 2009 (UTC)