Talk:Misnomer/Archives/2010/March

Democratic Republics

What about adding those nations such as the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) which were not actually democracies? I believe there were other then-communist nations with similar names.

More tenuously, Northern Ireland is further south than the northernmost point of the Republic of Ireland, sometimes called Southern Ireland (see Extreme points of Ireland). --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 18:23, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

In the interest of full disclosure, on this article (but not most other articles) I tend to be a deletionist. I think about 80% of this overbloated and often ridiculous article needs to go. I chipped away at it by removing the most glaring examples of complete misinterpretation of the word "misnomer", but the article is still embarraassingly full of junk.

As for GDR, my opinion is that countries can name themselves anything they want or define democracy any way they want. Just because we disagree does not make it a misnomer.

The Northern Ireland example is closer to a real misnomer, although we then get into the issue of whether we are talking about most of Ireland being south of Northern Ireland, or all of Ireland being south of Northern Ireland. If no one else expresses an opinion, I would not remove it if you added it to the article. Ward3001 (talk) 18:43, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think anything like that about N.I. should be included. Southern Ireland is an incorrect term used by people trying to distinguish whether 'The Republic of..' or 'Northern...' Ireland is meant. I note that it is difficult sometimes to clarify between 'Northern/Southern' and 'The north of/the south of'. Ireland is Ireland, historically the island as a whole and, when stated as is often meant as ROI these days. Northern Ireland, when formed, drew its name from its location in the north of Ireland and does not claim to be 'all of the north of Ireland'. Therefore I don't think it should be listed as a misnomer. At most, a line or two clarifying the situation on the and Ireland article may be necessary (I have not checked, maybe there is already).

Well done for tidying Ward3001, the article was cluttered full of non-misnomers. There are some things that simply draw confusion due to readers' assumptions, not because they are nominally misleading. a_boardley (talk) 17:23, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

"Democratic" need not have been a misnomer, but was largely rooted in a different definition of what "democracy" means. (Cf. socialist literature.) A possible justification could be through a drift of intentions and practice over time, causing even the socialist definition to be misapplied.94.220.254.157 (talk) 03:17, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Intentional Misnomers

I didn't see a mention of intentional misnomers, e.g. "Antivirus Pro" or "Clear Skies Initiative". The latter being too controversial for a good example, buy you get the point. A misnomer given with the intent of misleading others. MrYdobon (talk) 10:45, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

You don't see any mention of these because they are not misnomers, intentional or otherwise. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here, but these phrases are not misnomers. 71.77.21.198 (talk) 04:54, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Christian / Creation Science

Said to be misnomer due to religious affiliation, creation science is a merger of science and a nonsecular view of the origins of the universe. I'm not advocating that creation science is pure science, just that it's not pure religion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.115.13.190 (talk) 00:23, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

It's far closer to religion than it is science. From Creation science: "Its most vocal proponents are fundamentalist and conservative Christians in the United States who seek to prove Biblical inerrancy and mount a challenge against the scientifically accepted theory of evolution". But, since this article has a lot of crap in it anyway, if other's agree with you I wouldn't object to you removing it. But let's wait and see. Ward3001 (talk) 03:03, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

It might be closer to science than it is to religion, but is still contradicts information on other wikipedia pages, for example the creationism page. On that page, it is clearly claimed that creationism intends to be scientific. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.131.131.188 (talk) 08:53, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Creationism is not closer to science. From the lead sentence of Creationism: "Creationism is the religious belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe were created in their original form by a deity (often the Abrahamic God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam) or deities" (bold text added). Ward3001 (talk) 16:15, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Would suggest that at least proponents of creation science believe they are working within the scientific method, and that arguments about it being "not a science" are based on particular philospohies of what science is. Standard 'scientific' views of the world may be said to be based on a naturalistic philosophy which precludes any supernatural means, which may be suggested to be just as much dogmatic belief as creationism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.17.144.241 (talk) 02:32, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Your argument may or may not have merit (I believe it does not; people may "think" lots of things that are not based in reality), but that is really beside the point. There's too much crap in this article already (see discussion below). We don't need to include a debate in this article about what science is or what creationists consider science to be. The solution is to completely remove the item because it is not clearly a misnomer. 71.77.21.198 (talk) 16:10, 27 March 2010 (UTC)