Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Irlo" data-source="post: 8754289" data-attributes="member: 7028372">I get it. It's important to acknowledge that people and our artifacts are in the world and of the world and, in that sense, natural. Placing people and our creations outside of (and above) nature can lead to devastating effects. Also, some people also tend to categorize sexual behaviors and actions that they don't approve of as unnatural -- another way of putting ourselves above others, with similarly devastating effects.Even as we acknowledge the people are in the world and of the world, we can use the terms natural and artificial in meaningful ways, to separate the actions and creations of people from the actions and creations not attributable to people. It's a common usage of the term natural that seems particularly apt when talking about cold iron and fey. When your new doctor asks about your health history and you disclose that you have an artificial heart, the doctor will NOT lecture you that your heart is just as natural as the one you were born with, because we are all natural creatures and nothing we do is outside of nature, and doctors will NOT treat you as they would if you had your own biological heart. It's a useful and meaningful distinction with real-world consequences.The distinction in language between natural and artificial conveys useful, actionable information. It's what allows an archaeologist to sift through debris to determine that some are natural rocks and others are artificial tools, which tells us about the people who lived among those rocks. River otters use rocks to open shellfish. We'd have a drastically different perspective on otters if they ran a shellfish processing plant on the beach. There's a difference between Hoover Dam and a natural dam of fallen trees and boulders. There's value in acknowledging that human activity has effects on climate patterns.</blockquote>

Verification