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Talk:Essay:Best New Conservative Words (view source)
Revision as of 01:28, June 13, 2009
, 01:28, June 13, 2009Questions about Methodology
Hope this helps... -[[User:Zerlock|Zerlock]] 21:24, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
Hope this helps... -[[User:Zerlock|Zerlock]] 21:24, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
== Question about Methodology ==
This article makes the assertion that by analyzing "liberal" terms versus "conservative" terms, one can conclude that conservatism is on the rise. Let me emphasize that I do not dispute this notion. I do feel, however, that as it is written now the assertion has not been rigorously proven. I have the following concerns:
1. What is the definition of a "Conservative Word"? What is the definition of a "Liberal Word"? It is important to explicitly define those two terms if we are going to claim that there are more "Conservative Words" than "Liberal Words". For example, is a "Conservative Word" a word that was coined by a conservative, or is it one that has been used to describe conservative ideology, or is it one used to disparage conservatives by non-conservatives? Is a word conservative if it was originally meant to be conservative or if it was not originally intended to have an ideology but later acquired one?
2. There are certain words like "insightful" that do not seem to be related to any ideology. Why are such words classified as "conservative"? Likewise, what does cryptography have to do with conservatism? One more example: the "Big Bang" is simply the currently accepted scientific theory about how the universe began. How can a scientific theory have an ideology?
3. How can we be sure that we have counted every word in each category? Is it possible that we spent more time searching for words in one of the two categories, and as a result that category has more words than the other?
4. It is claimed that conservative words are of higher quality than liberal ones. What metric is used to assess the "quality" of a word?
I am not sure if the above questions are answerable. If they are, however, then we come to the most important point:
5. After clarifying the first three points, let's say we determine that there are more "Conservative Words" than "Liberal Words" (or the other way around). Is it possible to conclude that an ideology is on the rise simply by looking at the rate of change of words associated with that ideology.
One more concern:
6. I feel that we are studying this problem deductively when we should be studying it inductively. Specifically, we are trying to prove that conservative words fit into a geometric ratio - we are starting with a conclusion some people wish to find, and then we are searching for evidence to fit it. I am skeptical of this - it would probably be better to collect all the data first and THEN analyze the data for conclusions, a more empirical method that will serve this essay better.
I hope that these four questions provoke a discourse. Over the next day or so, I will attempt to give my own answer to what is a "Conservative Word" and what is a "Liberal Word." Please do not construe this message as an attempt to attack this essay; rather, I wish to help make it more rigorous, something for which we should all strive! I am not saying that I dispute the notion that conservatism is on the rise - I merely doubt that this is an effective way of proving that fact.
If you disagree with any of my points, I am very open to hearing your opinion. My goal is to objectively study the growth rate of ideological words; any advice you can contribute would be immensely appreciated. [[User:Khamilton|Khamilton]] 21:28, 12 June 2009 (EDT)