Describe your image here
Describe your image here
Describe your image here
Describe your image here
Describe your image here
Describe your image here
In the Image of God He Created Man
Etic Data: Fixed Standards
1. By what Standard?
On a university campus students learn that science is all about making decisions based on fixed standards, measurements, and constants. But the same cannot be said of the Liberal Art departments which includes fields of study like anthropology, sociology, religion, history, psychology, economics, political science, semantics, and, in some schools, missiology. This is troubling....
2. Innate Taxonomic Tools and Science
2. Innate Taxonomic Tools and Science
Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker (1954-....), a Jewish intellectual who rejected the teachings of the Torah at the age of thirteen, recognized that without an innate set of taxonomic tools, there could be no science. He correctly points out that "people in all cultures carry out long chains of reasoning built from links whose truth they could not have observed directly. Philosophers have often pointed out that science is made possible by that ability.” As a theist, I would agree when he says: "Science is made possible by that ability."
3. The Task of Science: to Reveal Essence
Karl Marx declared: "It is the task of science to reveal the essence, the internal, deep and underlying processes behind the multitude of phenomena, the outward aspects and features of reality." The statement implies there exists innate qualities of human nature that manifest themselves in human behavior.
4. The Analyst's Need: a Framework of Fixed Standards
Theoretically, linguist Kenneth Pike proposed that "etic data provide access into the system --the starting point of analysis." Whether the system be linguistic, semantic, psychological, or social, the only means for measuring and judging the validity of any system is through a framework of fixed data which Pike called "etic data."
5. Etic Data in the Mind?
Kenneth Pike, as a theist, figured he could extend the concepts of phonetic and phonemic used in linguistics to other spheres of human behavior, namely, sociology and anthropology. He was proposing that there existed a scientific, culture-free way to do anthropology. It was a revolutionary idea that challenged academia.
The Meaning of Etic
In the academic community, for ideological, philosophical, and religious reasons, there is a great deal of confusion as to what the term etic means. Originally, the meaning of the term etic coined by linguist Kenneth Pike denoted discrete units of sound which were fixed and constant, and which the linguist could use in creating a "scientific alphabet" for any sound system of language. In semantics, the term etic denotes discrete units of meaning which are fixed and constant....
3. Discovering a Universal Imperative
Long before Marian and I arrived on the scene in 1955, the Chácobo were fully aware of the Biblical principle: “do for others just as you want them to do for you.” They had knowledge of the Principle long before any Christian arrived in the Americas. The Principle was not learned. It revealed ESSENCE, that is, how to live as a being created "in the image of God."
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Cultural Analysis without Fixed Standards?
Social scientists, anthropologists, linguists, and psychologists are all looking for the Holy Grail: an absolute, fixed, culture-free standard needed for judging the validity of cultural forms. Without such a fixed unchanging culture-free Standard it is impossible to know what ought to be. One theologian points out that “In the midst of multitudes of perspectives, there must be a criterion by which these opinions can be judged." In the social sciences, such a STANDARD is...
Discrete Units of Meaning: the Color-Sound Scale
Did scientists determine how many vibrations of air per second produced the musical scale of Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si, Do on the left; or, did they discover them? Musicians are inclined to say: "The musical scale is not an accident. It is a natural consequence of pure mathematics and nature. It's more proper to say it was discovered, not invented." The same holds true for inherent meanings attached to forms or concepts held in common. These meanings and categories are not an invention, they are discovered.
A Proposed "Gap" Filler": Structuralism
There exist gaps in the explanation of the phenomena of human existence that materialists are confident they can fill, given enough time. One such gap for the materialists is the beginning of language and meaning. The "gap" that needed to be filled concerned the process by which pre-humans became thinking human beings endowed with language.
The Significance of Etic Variation
“The minute you equate truth [or sounds or meanings] with precision you have gone to etic exactness. There is no true statement ever in any of our experiences because, if we measure it within a millionth of an inch, it would always be different” --Pike. Whenever I tuned my saxophone to the sound A, achieving exactness is impossible. Likewise, the path marked out for us by the Lord does not demand exactness.
