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How would a student's knowledge of biology be different...

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Reply 100
Original post by queensboy
A french student has never heard of technical terms such as cell wall, cytoplasm, nucleus etc. They only know them in french. So unless they go to google translate, they have a slightly different knowledge to us linguistically. Concept wise no, linguistically yes.

This can apply to any subject. The first time you heard about the greenhouse effect was in year 7 I guess. The germans know this as the triebhauseffekt, no german would have been taught the term "greenhouse effect", such as no child in the UK is taught the term "triebhauseffekt".

I can't see how people can deny this doesn't mean your knowledge is different. The fact you don't know the word, just proves it.


Ignoring the fact that the german literally translates to... greenhouse effect. And that cytoplasm in french is cytoplasme.

Triebhauseffekt is also year 8 German vocabulary in the UK. granted it's not compulsory...

Your biology knowledge is the conceptual knowledge. Technical terms don't have some special meaning- they are just unique tokens to attach to detailed concepts.

That they know different words is trivially true. Knowing different words affects literally nothing except which words you know
Reply 101
Original post by lerjj
Ignoring the fact that the german literally translates to... greenhouse effect. And that cytoplasm in french is cytoplasme.

Triebhauseffekt is also year 8 German vocabulary in the UK. granted it's not compulsory...

Your biology knowledge is the conceptual knowledge. Technical terms don't have some special meaning- they are just unique tokens to attach to detailed concepts.

That they know different words is trivially true. Knowing different words affects literally nothing except which words you know


It's still knowledge. Knowing anything is knowledge.

Why have a language based education system? Why not just conceptualise it, so students draw out their answers?
Reply 102
Original post by godd
It's still knowledge. Knowing anything is knowledge.

Why have a language based education system? Why not just conceptualise it, so students draw out their answers?


We could. Language is more concise. Math is even better, which is why most science is done in that instead.

The question is 'knowledge of biology'. Your knowledge of biology does not include anything that is not biology, and that unfortunately gets rid of words that could be changed with no warning or notice.
Reply 103
Bump
Reply 104
Original post by lerjj
We could. Language is more concise. Math is even better, which is why most science is done in that instead.

The question is 'knowledge of biology'. Your knowledge of biology does not include anything that is not biology, and that unfortunately gets rid of words that could be changed with no warning or notice.



What do you mean by the last paragraph?
Original post by godd
What do you mean by the last paragraph?


That language has nothing to do with knowledge of biology.

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Reply 106
Original post by yabbayabba
That language has nothing to do with knowledge of biology.

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If I asked you to tell me the names of the parts of an animal cell in french, would you say you can't do it because of a lack of knowledge?
Original post by godd
If I asked you to tell me the names of the parts of an animal cell in french, would you say you can't do it because of a lack of knowledge?


We've been through this already.

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Reply 108
Original post by yabbayabba
We've been through this already.

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I know, I just don't get why knowing technical biology language doesn't count as biology knowledge.
Original post by godd
I know, I just don't get why knowing technical biology language doesn't count as biology knowledge.


Knowing it in one language is enough. Your argument suggests that you have to know technical biological terms in every language possible in order to not "lack biological knowledge". Simply knowing the names of things is not the same as knowing the concepts and how they work. The former is translation rather than biology.

You're not going to understand (either genuinely or just to play devil's advocate) so I'll stop now.

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Original post by godd
If I asked you to tell me the names of the parts of an animal cell in french, would you say you can't do it because of a lack of knowledge?


A lack of knowledge of the french language yes. Not a lack of cell biology knowledge.
Reply 111
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
A lack of knowledge of the french language yes. Not a lack of cell biology knowledge.



Doesn't cell biology knowledge encompass knowing what technical terms are in cell biology, whether that be in the english language or french language.
Original post by godd
Doesn't cell biology knowledge encompass knowing what technical terms are in cell biology, whether that be in the english language or french language.


It has already been explained.

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