But if we are so fearful of being even slightly wrong to the point of never saying anything ever, taking it too far. I really don't think noble was being anywhere near as absolute or "huge" as your statement suggest. Mountains out of molehills imo.
Take a ruler in a bucket of water. Should we try to grasp it with our hands we may not be able to by a mere glimpse as the light rays bouncing off the ruler may have been refracted and thus we are seeing an inaccurate image. Now by accounting for the possible refraction we may be able to grasp the ruler. Apply this concept to what we are saying. The " refraction" is the "blind spot" that is produced by our lack of omniscience, the "ruler " is the truth that perhaps exists in a possibly objective and all encompassing universe. By trying to account for a blind spots we may come closer to the truth. Now I do not mean one ought to try and identify every possibility, for to do so may indeed take a long time, but rather to respect the existence of what may lie beyond our experience and to account for it by stating that when we are talking in terms of generalities we are talking about them as such. We can try to account for the observer effect. Certain things are by there own semantics true.
Take for example the statement: All biological fathers provided their offspring with the male gamete; this statement is by definition true, the definition of a biological father of person A is the individual from whom the male gamete that led to the development of A's feotus and thus their body is by definition true.
When dealing with issues concerning people, human beings we may need to to be even more careful. Generalisation can be said to be the production of a hypothesis of of a general observation taken to possibly be generally true. Comments made by virtue of the process "generalisation" but said to be ubiquitously true can be considered somewhat wrong and can even be deleterious. This sort of thought experiment is sort of disparate from what I am talking about here but let us examine it anyway:
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All Patients in a ward are infected with a bacteria that kills by inducing a life threatening fever
1. Patient 1 sweats when their body overheats from the effect of the bacteria
2. Patient 2 sweats when their body overheats from the effect of the bacteria
3. Patient 3 sweats when their body overheats from the effect of the bacteria
Conclusion drawn: All patients in the ward would experience sweating when there body overheats and there is no need to constantly check temperature.
A Patient with CIPA is infected with the bacteria
Wikipedia said:
Congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis (CIPA) is an extremely
rare inherited disorder of the
nervous system which prevents the sensation of
pain, heat, and cold — or
any real nerve-related sensations (including feeling the need to urinate); however, they can feel pressure. CIPA is a type IV of
hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathy (HSAN), known as HSAN IV. A person with CIPA cannot feel pain or differentiate even extreme
temperatures. "
Anhidrosis" means the body does not
sweat, and "
congenital" means that the condition is present from birth. The odds of being born with this condition are 1 in 125 million.
* Also note how rare this ailment is projected to be*
4. CIPA patient does not sweat
5. Staff does not observe sweating and assumes based on the conclusion drawn that the patient does not have a fever
6. Patient dies
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Now what was done would perhaps never have the same outcome as our little though experiment. But it could do something that is hurtful to other people. I believe that most of us have seen people or are ourselves feel utterly outcast or been treated like such in our life. By making comments regarding the entirety of a demographic group, you can end up making people who stray outside of the trend feel hurt and you are perhaps crticising the integrity of their identity . Also take for example the multitude of examples occurring in this thread. Comments criticising " men" and " women" as entire demographic groups regardless if there are some members who are exhibiting the opposing trends, ones that may have been commended. Yet those of the latter are being criticised for " faults" they do not possess or " wrongs" they have not committed. I do not think that is right and I believe that some may agree with me that criticising someone for something they did not do or trait they do not possess is wrong.
Perhaps I did make a mountain out of a molehill. None, the less I conclude with a phrase attributed to the philosopher Voltaire:
Voltaire said:
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd
