Talk:Etiology

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[edit] Chicken pox

What is the etioilogy of Chicken Pox?

• Why, the varicella-zoster virus (VZV), as explained in the chicken pox article! :)   --Tarnas 04:30, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

'EVEN IF'->42 'UNLESS'->37

[edit] Use of the word

Should 'aetiology' be used to describe the causes of events that are unrelated to the world of psychology or medicine? eg. "The purpose of this part of the report is to explore both the environmental impacts of transport, and as far as is possible, the aetiology of these impacts."

Referring to 'biblical etiology' and giving the Flood as a 'mythic' example is certainly an example of this page's bias. Seeing that the scientific evidence is there for its occurrence, as well as there being the historical record, to label the Flood as myth, is to highlight a prejudice against the Biblical record. Rather steer clear of this sort of personal belief in definitons.

One man's myth is another man's religion. Get over it. Furthermore, not only is the term "myth" not pejorative, but in this article, the term "myth" is used only when referring to ancient pagan theologies (albeit ones that were rehashed for Judeo-Christian stories.) Thus, if anything, it's POV against pagan religions, not whichever religion you seem to have a bias for. 66.229.182.113 02:07, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

This is an excellent example of the LCD aspect of the Wikipedia knowledge acquisition mechanism. In this case, it is in regard to usage of aetiology from Mythology OED reference 1a while disregarding 2a. And so, the LCD is toward the motivation of the poster population, which is decidedly different from the population in general (as a possible LCD). The discussion of aetiology is quite thin on effects based reasoning or other epistemic aspects.

[edit] Connotations?

There's a discussion on the "homosexuality" page over the usage of "etiology" in the title of a section on biological causal factors. Apparently that usage is insulting because it implies that homosexuality is a disease, but I've always though the term was used (as in the introduction to this page) as the study of how anything can come about, not just unfavorable things. Any thoughts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zickx009 (talk • contribs) 05:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC)