One Two
by Berg
Image Text: Cue letters from Anthropology majors complaining that this view of numerolinguistic development perpetuates a widespread myth. They get to write letters like that because when you're not getting a real science degree you have a lot of free time.
First off- in case you breezed past the "by" line, this is Berg, not Jeff. I'm gonna be updating the site periodically whenever Ol' Jeffaroo needs a helping hand. Pleasure to meet you. And now, on to the explanation...
Today's comic shows us a television screen featuring The Count, a Sesame Street character of some renown who's a fan of counting (and probably has some sort of Autistic Spectrum Disorder). He counts, as he is known to do, but runs out of numbers after 2, defaulting then to "Many." The implication, based on the caption, is that The Count is presenting a counting lesson for primitive cultures, who don't have a sophisticated enough system of numbers to express anything larger than 2 specifically.
Based on the 2005 documentary "The World According to Sesame Street," there is reason to believe that if there were a culture who's numeric system was this simple that this is indeed the Sesame Street that was created for them. After all, if Rruga Sesam (Kosovo) can have a bit about how to identify and avoid old landmines, why wouldn't this fictional culture's Sesame Street have a simplified version of The Count?
The image text is fairly self-explanatory, but still worth picking apart- it's a clear dig at Anthropology, and by extension the rest of the so-called "soft sciences." Soft science is a derisive categorization of many social sciences, or fields of study in general who's methodology falls very much under the umbrella of science, but who's areas of study require the use of more subjective conjecturing than objective analysis of data (I'm looking at you, Sociology). Soft sciences, such as Anthropology, are therefore seen by many as less rigorous than hard sciences, such as Physics.
The author is suggesting, then, that the lack of rigor necessary to earn a degree in Anthropology enables its students to pursue less important lines of inquiry- such as "is Xkcd sensitive to stereotypes of primitive cultures?" The answer to which is, of course, NO.
July 9th, 2010
Great Explanation! Leave no stone or obvious joke unturned!
July 9th, 2010
Was the capitalisation of the X in xkcd intentional in that post??
July 9th, 2010
Goodness, no. That’s just what happens when you’re still awake at 6am. I call it “Insomniac Grammar.”
July 9th, 2010
The use of “Many” is probably a Discworld reference. “Three” in Trollish is “Many” while “Four” is “Lots.”
July 9th, 2010
Oh boy, as soon as I read the comic on xkcd, my first thought was to rush over to this site because I am as lost as heck
“this view of numerolinguistic development perpetuates a widespread myth”
What in the heck is numerolingustic development? Is it an easier way of saying “developing a counting system”? And if so, what widespread myth does it perpetuate?
July 9th, 2010
Good question- My apologies for being so eager to point out the softness of some sciences that I missed this in the original explanation.
“Numerolinguistic development” is essentially a fancy way of saying “developing a counting system,” or, more generally, developing a means of symbolically representing mathematical concepts, which includes counting.
The widespread myth that xkcd is being accused of perpetuating is that primitive cultures lack sophistication, in this case represented by the inadequacies of their counting systems compared to ours. Many cultures, both modern and ancient, are given worth in academic literature and the public imagination based on their level of technological sophistication (arguably an objectively quantifiable trait) as opposed to their cultural richness, which takes into account their customs and way of life (not an objectively quantifiable trait).
Thus, the hypothetical Anthropology major’s complaint serves on some level to further highlight the softer aspects of the discipline, and in so doing deftly sets up the jab explained in the original post.
July 12th, 2010
I read this as a comparison between Computer Science and the softer sciences. In CS we were taught that there were typically 3 states we had to account for when counting; zero, one and infinite. (In other words, does said occurrence happen zero times, one time, or more than once, up to an infinite number?)
Granted, the Count started at 1, but the same principle applies. 1, 2, … (many) or 0, 1, … (many/infinite)
Since Computer Science is a fairly rigorous discipline, I wonder if you could argue a society’s sophistication because they boiled down all their problems like a computer scientist would; sets of zero, one, or infinite.
yeah, I’m reaching now. My $.02
July 13th, 2010
The xkcd-site currently shows this as a subtitle, referring to the “One Two” comic:
“I’m sorry if I hurt anthropology-major feelings with Friday’s alt-text.
I meant it as a friendly jibe at a cool field. I … anthropologize”
I guess, this should be mentioned here…
July 30th, 2010
Late to the party, but I wrote a post exploring if this was an actual myth:
http://numberwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/is-one-two-many-a-myth/