Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 December 14

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December 14

Balanced View & Candice O'Denver

Dear Wiki:

Oddly, Wikipedia does not have any information on the 'Balanced View' Cult and it's leader Candice O'Denver.

Even more odd is that all information on the internet except the official 'Balanced View' and 'Candice O'Denver' website is unavailable. A complete blackout - wow!

Who is this Candice O'Denver? What are some facts about 'Balanced View'?

Thanks Much!

-P.H. Siegel — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.127.222.235 (talk) 00:07, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Most stuff that's out there isn't on the Internet or Wikipedia.Itsmejudith (talk) 10:11, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

One independent review of one of their meetings is here. Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:42, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Elected Female Saudis?

We've currently got the first local elections allowing Saudi women to vote at ITN;

and this: http://news.yahoo.com/woman-wins-seat-mecca-municipal-council-saudi-polls-054406124.html;_ylt=AwrXgCMdg21WGCYAJhDQtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTByM3V1YTVuBGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMzBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg--;

saying they Saudis are proud to have their first women office holders. Leaving out the proud part as POV, is the implied fact part true, that until now no women Saudis have ever held elected office before? Thanks. (My underlying point is that if this is true, ITN should reflect the fact.) μηδείς (talk) 00:51, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

It appears that in 2005, two Saudi women were elected to the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce & Industry (40,000 members, 3,000 women), and one woman was elected to the board of the Saudi Council of Engineers (5,000 members, 20 women). here and here

Norah Al Faiz was the first Saudi woman to hold a cabinet post (vice minister of education, 2009), but this was an appointed post, not an elected one.

In 2006 the Shura Council appointed six women as advisers, and by 2011 that number had risen to 12, but women advisers have no right to vote (see Human Rights Watch).

So this most recent election does seem to be the first time Saudi women have been elected to government posts, although since Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy and the local councils have no lawmaking power, it may not be all that more significant than the earlier elections to the professional bodies. Neutrality^talk 02:21, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

What is the proper name for the priest's script in a Roman Catholic Church mass?

When a priest celebrates a mass in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, he speaks according to a certain "script". In other words, in every mass, the priests all say the same words verbatim, for the most part. Does this "script" have a name? And a Wikipedia article? Thanks. 2602:252:D13:6D70:455D:E1EF:3361:ED2 (talk) 01:19, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Missal. See also Liturgical books of the Roman Rite. Note that not all Masses are the same, but they're still standardised; different days have different "scripts", but the priest always has a script to follow. Nyttend (talk) 01:20, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

The specific script is one of the various liturgies, and not all "Catholic" missals carry the same liturgies. See, for example the Ruthenian Recension, a version of the liturgy of the normally "Orhtodox" Saint John Chrysostom used by us Byzantine Catholics. μηδείς (talk) 01:36, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! My next question: Recently (perhaps 2 or 3 years ago?), they (whoever "they" is) changed some of the words that the church congregation speaks during certain parts of the Mass. For example, in the olden way of doing it, the priest would say "the Lord be with you" and the congregation would respond "and also with you". But, with the new changes, the congregation now responds "and with your spirit". There are several other of these minor wording changes. So, why were these changes made? And is there an article about that? Thanks. 2602:252:D13:6D70:455D:E1EF:3361:ED2 (talk) 04:01, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

See Dominus vobiscum and Liturgiam authenticam. In the original Latin mass, the priest says "Dominus vobiscum" or "Pax vobis" ("Lord be with you" or "Peace be with you"), and the response is "Et cum spiritu tuo" ("and with your spirit"). When Vatican II replaced the Latin mass, this was translated as "And also with you", which fits the meter quite nicely, but isn't a literal translation. Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI were both quite conservative and didn't really like the idea of translating the mass loosely, so they prescribed a literal translation. John Paul II's Vatican started the process, but the official translations came out after his death (which means that Benedict gets more of the praise/blame for the change than he perhaps deserves). Smurrayinchester 10:37, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. But hasn't it been like that (the old way) for many hundreds of years? Why, all of the sudden (in 2005 or whenever), did it start to get attention? Thanks. 2602:252:D13:6D70:14C4:9303:8519:D32A (talk) 17:05, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Does this [1] help? They change things when they want to. By "the old way" do you mean the response "and also with you"? If so, then no, it had not been that way for hundreds of years. Prior to Vatican II, Catholic mass was generally given in Latin, and so "and also with you" would not be the response. Ask some Catholics, those that remember mass before Vatican II will likely be happy to discuss how bad/good it was, and how things are the same/different now. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:57, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Here is the article for Second Vatican Council (often referred to as "Vatican II"), which led to huge changes in Church practices. For the OP, you're going to have to do some reading if you want to learn the history of Catholic practices. The Catholic Church is a top-down affair. The services, rites, etc. are all officially defined and published by the church hierarchy, so for any question along the lines of "When did the Church start doing this?" you should be able to find the document(s) setting out the change, though you might have to do a bit of digging. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 23:47, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Very helpful information! To anyone who is interested, I am also posting a (tangentially related) follow up question below (under the heading "Why are certain saints' names listed in the Roman Catholic Missal?", dated December 15, 2015). Thanks again. 2602:252:D13:6D70:14C4:9303:8519:D32A (talk) 03:54, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Discrimination in abortion

1. How many are aborted because they have a disability (like Down syndrome)? 2. How many are aborted due to their gender? 3. Is there a link between lack of religion and high discrimination in abortion (not just in China)? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jangan Perkauman (talk • contribs) 08:53, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

The term to use is "sex", not gender. A fetus has a sex, but not a gender. Our article on sex-selective abortion is a good starting point. Here are some specific scholarly studies you might be interested in. One about these issues in the Netherlands [2], one very long study about patterns in India [3], and one about India-born mothers in England [4]. I did not see anything about lack of religion linked to more sex-selective abortion. If anything, the opposite. In the India study, Urban/rural splits, education, and region have much more impact on the practice than religion. Table 6.27 shows no strong differences between Hindus and Muslims in "ideal" sex ratio preference - both skewed strongly toward males, while "other" (which I think includes atheists/non-religious) has a preferred sex ratio that is closer to even. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:18, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Sex and gender distinction has some drawbacks - it seems to replace a Procrustean bed with a Procrustean mattress and a Procrustean pillow, since there are many unrelated characteristics and so many intermediate values. [5] And it is all so ... semantic. Abortions in these countries are based entirely on the social status and economic effects of their "sex", which is to say, their gender, so why call it sex-selective? I'd think 'sex-selective' would be more like an abortion done to avoid the chance of an X-linked recessive genetic disease, perhaps. Wnt (talk) 16:14, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the biases toward/against a fetal sex are likely due to gender biases. Still, I (and most dictionaries, and most biologists) prefer reserve "sex" for the biology bit, and "gender" for the social bit. A bit off topic, and I probably shouldn't have opened with the quibble. "Sex-selective" is what it's called in the literature, and so I thought the wording distinction might help OP and others find the relevant info. Searching for /gender abortion/ gets you results about men's and women's view on abortion, while searching for /sex abortion/ gets hits that talk about preferentially aborting female fetuses. Of course it's a semantic distinction; we're talking about the meaning of words. And on that topic I can't stand when people use "semantics" to mean "unimportant" or "not worth discussing" - knowing what we're talking about and what words mean is very important for effective communication in science! :) SemanticMantis (talk) 16:39, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Genetics_and_abortion is our article relevant to selective abortion related to disability of the fetus. "Disability-selective abortion" will lots of useful results from google scholar [6]. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:25, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining the correct terms. Sex-selective abortion seems most common in China (where most people not religious) and India (where most people are very religious). But disability-selective abortion seems more common in the West, where Christians oppose abortion and non-religious people defend abortion. Hope we can find numbers for disability-selective abortions in the world or by country. What are views on disability-selective abortion in different societies? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jangan Perkauman (talk • contribs) 05:32, 15 December 2015 (UTC) <!-Autosigned by SineBot-->

You might find Female infanticide an illuminating article. The practice of abandoning babies (especially girls or disabled boys) is described by anthropologists as commonplace. We have articles about infanticide in several countries. Modern surgical abortions should not be understood in isolation. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 12:37, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

"Wharton graduate"

A presidential candidate in the Philippines is being criticized by another candidate for allegedly not being a "Wharton graduate". The candidate claims to have finished a bachelor's (undergraduate) degree at the Wharton School of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, a claim which was later proven by news outlets and the school itself. However, it is claimed that him being called a "Wharton graduate" is inaccurate as apparently the term only refers to people who completed a Master's course in the said school, while the candidate in question only finished an undergraduate course in the said school. The question I'm asking here is: is this practice accurate? Is the term "Wharton graduate" only used to refer to Masters graduates of the said school, or does the term apply to graduates of bachelor's degrees as well? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 14:09, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Sounds like a silly objection to me. Wharton's web page [7] prominently shows their undergraduate programs. Sounds like some politicians are just playing games and not respecting compositional semantics. Put simply, being a "Wharton graduate" means only that one graduated from a place called Wharton - nothing more, nothing less. It may be true that some people shorten "I have an MBA from Wharton" to "I'm a Wharton graduate", but that doesn't make it incorrect to say that you graduated from Wharton if indeed you received a b.s. from Wharton. Now, you might get in to trouble if you graduated from Wharton_County_Junior_College, and said "I'm a Wharton grad" - you'd still be telling the truth, but in this case it could be argued that people will naturally expect that the world-famous school is meant, not the semi-obscure junior college. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:32, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Agree. In English "graduate" is usually defined as follows:

noun ˈɡraj(ə)wət/

1. A person who has successfully completed a course of study or training, especially a person who has been awarded an undergraduate academic degree.

[...]

So if he has been awarded an undergraduate degree, he is a graduate of that school, in the normal usage of the word "graduate" of the English language. --Lgriot (talk) 16:03, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

This might turn out to get tricky. At issue is that undergraduates are enrolled in the university, where Wharton offers a concentration of coursework. But are economics majors enrolled in the Wharton school, and do they graduate from there? I have no idea, but I'd be wary of easy answers in this kind of semantic pit. Wnt (talk) 16:07, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm tempted to believe that this [8] is a fairly reliable source, and if so then Wharton/U.Penn registrar has said he's a graduate of the Wharton School at U. Penn. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:32, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

The thing is, my question is less about the definiton of "graduate" and "undergraduate", and more of asking if the claim that the term "Wharton graduate" is used in common speech only to refer to graduates of Masters degrees from the said school and excluding those who only finished a bachelor's degree is accurate. Are there any Wikipedians who are alumni of Wharton or the University of Pennsylvania who could clarify this matter? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 17:48, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

I have nothing to contribute, except to say I was rather startled to realise that this question wasn’t about a certain other Wharton alumnus (or whatever) running for election right now… Blythwood (talk) 20:00, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

That's actually not as offtopic as it may seem. It seems Trump is likewise a graduate of the undergraduate and not the MBA program [9] [10] [11]. (To avoid controversy, I chose these sources because they seem to properly confirm he attended the undergraduate programme and not the MBA, I'm not suggesting people comment on other aspects of these sources except any that directly relate to this question.)

So is Trump (and his children, who according to one of those sources attended the same programme) commonly called a Wharton graduate? One of those sources refers to a classmate as a Wharton graduate, I'm presuming this is from the undergraduate programme and not because he also did an MBA. Likewise a search finds sources referring to Trump [12] [13] or one of his children [14] [15] as Wharton graduates.

OTOH, I'm not sure if most of these sources even know about the undergraduate programme. (Clearly the one writing about him doing the undergraduate programme did.) And definitely a search for Wharton graduate, if you ignore the stuff relating to this controversy or the graduate school or association or whatever, does find stuff about expected career earnings or possible jobs for Wharton graduates. I strongly suspect these are referring to Wharton MBA graduates only. So IMO< it wouldn't be particularly surprising if the aunderstanding most people have when you say you say someone is a Wharton graduate, is that said person has an MBA from Wharton. This is regardless of whether or not people feel that means it's inaccurate to say someone is a Wharton graduate, if it was from the undergraduate program.

Nil Einne (talk) 22:33, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Thinking about this, that is good evidence that nobody seems to think this is a problem. If Trump was exaggerating about being a Wharton graduate you bet someone would have mentioned it by now. Blythwood (talk) 06:24, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

How do you call someone who hate Muslims and Jewish people?

Both are semitic, but it seems that 'antisemitic' has the exclusive meaning of 'hating Jewish people'.--Ashortquestion (talk) 19:52, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

I think it's fairly rare that many Indonesian Muslims or Malaysian Muslims or Pakistan Muslims are considered semitic, even if they know some Arabic. Nil Einne (talk) 20:06, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

That's because merely knowing or speaking Arabic does not make one Semitic, just as merely knowing the Hebrew language does not make one Jewish. Jewishness is an exceptionally complex case (see Who is a Jew?), but in the case of the Semitic people, one has to have genetic (= blood) connections with them to be considered one of them.

OP, it is not true that Muslims are necessarily Semitic. Many are, of course, but millions of people with non-Semitic blood have converted to or been born into Islam. Islam is a religion, not a race. Islam is fast becoming the predominant religion of Russia, and apart from Birobidjan, Russia has never been home to any Semitic peoples. There are more Indonesian Muslims than any other kind, including Arabs, and nobody with Malay or other South-East Asian ancestry is Semitic. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:23, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

I think you meant to say "nobody with nearly exclusively Malay or other South-East Asian ancestry is Semitic", since it may be resonable for someone who's of half Arabic decent and half Malay descent (or whatever) semitic, particularly if they strongly identify with Arabic culture etc. Or to put it a different way, if they are considered an Arab, it's probably resonable to consider them semitic. And the former is definitely possible, just as such a person may be considered Malay. (Or I may be considered Chinese even though I'm half Malaysian Chinese and half Pākehā.) Otherwise I largely agree with you. My "rare" caveat wasn't actually due to this consideration, but to avoid confusion in case someone finds a weird definition that does include these groups. Nil Einne (talk) 22:26, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't say " Islam is fast becoming the predominant religion of Russia," They are for sure the second biggest religions group, if you are not splitting them in different groups of Muslims. And there is some slow growth in the Muslim population, but they are far from becoming a majority. --Denidi (talk) 22:28, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

"Bigots". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:42, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

"Partially anti-Abrahamic religiocists? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:25, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Baseball Bugs actually has a good point here even if not properly explained. One reason why there's no good term to describe someone who hates both Muslims and Jewish people, or for that matterby the same token all semitic people, would simply because it's rare that such a categorisation is necessary or useful. Sure there are people who are like that, white supremacists for example, but they also tend to display bigotry towards lots of other people. Edit: And there isn't any particular reason to single out their bigotry for Muslims and Jewish people (or whatever) or put it in a category by itself. The earlier example, white supremacists tend to hate most people who they don't consider white (whatever some may say about just wanting to preserve the white race). While their hatred may be particularly strong for Jewish people, and nowadays often Muslims and perhaps also semitic people who aren't Muslims they tend to hate "black" people with equal measure. (Actually probably most people who display bigotry towards Jewish people and Muslims would also show it towards people they consider "black".) And it's not like they tend to be particularly kind to most East Asians, South East Asians or South Asians, or native Americans, or Indigenous Australians (actually the later are probably considered closer to blacks and the rest, except that other than Australian white supremacists, they don't really care). Nil Einne (talk) 22:26, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

The unusual term is explained at Antisemitism. Grayboard2 (talk) 21:58, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

What unusual term? Your linked article covers only a small proportion Dbfirs 22:44, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Antisemislamophobic. Seriously. The tedious old canard that "Arabs can't be Antisemites as they are themselves Semites" (which can come in several variants, e.g. the statement "The [Hyper Cacher] supermarket attack in Paris was about Palestine, about Isis. It had nothing to do with antisemitism; many of them are Semites themselves" spouted by Karen Armstrong here, among other places possibly; see this also) is doubly idiotic as (1) it is a fact of the English language that an "Antisemite" is not a "Semite hater" but a "Jew hater" and (2) since there are Jewish Antisemites, there would be no incompatibility between being both a Semite and a Jew hater even if "Antisemite" did mean "Semite hater" (which it does not). Contact Basemetal here 08:02, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

I came across someone like this on a newspaper comments section the other day and reported the post to the editors. 'Nazi' was my short description of the poster's viewpoint. It was pretty obvious. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:26, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Labour humor's so laboured. Contact Basemetal here 20:53, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

• This is a classic example of the Etymological fallacy, the belief that a word can only mean what its constituent parts say it must mean. In this case, people are pulling the part "semite" out of the word, and attempting to connect it to semitic peoples. The correct answer, of course, is that "Antisemite" as it is used by most English speakers, means "hates Jewish people", and does not include Arabic people. Of course, Arabs are not the majority of, nor are they exclusively, Muslim. Iranians, Indonesians, Bosniaks, Pakistanis, etc. are not Semitic in any way. So thinking someone who "hates Muslims" could be counted among "antisemites" is wrong on two counts: Antisemite, despite its etymology, really does mean "hates Jewish people", and most Muslims are not semitic peoples. --Jayron32 12:32, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

jefferson davis capture cartoons and photographs

hello: Jefferson Davis was captured May 10, 1865 in a womans coat....the press made fun of him printing cartoons and people made photographs. I have one of these photographs and want to know more about these photographs, how many were made? what did the people do with them (show them around as a gag?)...is there a Jefferson Davis library or archive? thank you gary — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.129.115.115 (talk) 21:39, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Davis may have been wearing a heavy shawl owned by his wife when captured, not as an attempt at a disguise, but because the weather was unusually cold. The incident led to mockery and propaganda cartoons. Yes, there is a Jefferson Davis Presidential Library. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:05, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Interestingly, Lincoln was wearing a shawl when he was shot, so it was not that exotic for Jefferson to be wearing one when he was captured. Edison (talk) 15:34, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

What's the name of this logical fallacy?

What's this called: A person has an opinion. They then shape their subsequent reading of data to reinforce that opinion, using "attack the source" or "could be a conspiracy theory; follow the money" takes on the data right away, rather than evaluating the data itself. Grayboard2 (talk) 21:45, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Dismissing claims as absurd without proving their absurdity is Argumentum ad lapidem. Or, declaring oneself an authority on a subject and using their own authority as an argument would be Argumentum ad verecundiam. There is also a list of informal fallacies you can peruse at your leisure. uhhlive (talk) 22:15, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Confirmation bias is relevant. The thing about logical fallacies and informal fallacies is that any given statement or behavior can be classified in many different overlapping ways. So while there are better and worse answers for this type of question, there is usually no single one "right" answer. SemanticMantis (talk) 22:17, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

This is not a logical fallacy. This is a bias. The bias is refusing to commit one's time and resources into studying the data based on one's world view. This is NOT a logical fallacy. A logical fallacy is when a person study a data and reject (or accept) a correct/wrong conclusion based on an incorrect logical deduction. 175.45.116.66 (talk) 01:23, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

This fallacy or bias is a cornerstone of politics. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:28, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

If they're assuming the data is wrong on account of its origins, that would presumably be a variety of Ad hominem. (Not to be confused with Ad hominid (which is what my spell-checker wanted to change that to), which presumably would be dismissing someone's argument because they are a damn dirty ape). Iapetus (talk) 12:46, 16 December 2015 (UTC)