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Stenka25 Posted 11 years ago
Vocabulary
Pronoun problems
pronoun problems
The passage below is from ‘the Blank Slate’ by Steven Pinker.
http://evolbiol.ru/blankslate/blankslate.htm
What is the payoff for connecting the social and cultural levels of analysis to the psychological and biological ones? ?It is the thrill of discoveries that could never be made within the boundaries of a single discipline, such as universals of beauty, the logic of language, and the components of the moral sense. And ?it is the uniquely satisfying understanding we have enjoyed from the unification of the other sciences — the explanation of muscles as tiny magnetic ratchets, of flowers as lures for insects, of the rainbow as a splaying of wavelengths that ordinarily blend into white. ?It is the difference between stamp collecting and detective work, between slinging around jargon and offering insight, between saying that something just is and explaining why it had to be that way as opposed to some other way it could have been.
In this passage I want to know what the three underlined ‘it’ stand for.
I have made my answers.
?It : ‘the payoff’
?it : ‘the payoff’
?It : this is the most difficult part, in a way ‘It’ seems to refer to ‘the payoff’ as the other two, but it also seems to be able to represent ‘the uniquely satisfying understanding’ in another.
Can you check them out for me?
Regards.
The passage below is from ‘the Blank Slate’ by Steven Pinker.
http://evolbiol.ru/blankslate/blankslate.htm
What is the payoff for connecting the social and cultural levels of analysis to the psychological and biological ones? ?It is the thrill of discoveries that could never be made within the boundaries of a single discipline, such as universals of beauty, the logic of language, and the components of the moral sense. And ?it is the uniquely satisfying understanding we have enjoyed from the unification of the other sciences — the explanation of muscles as tiny magnetic ratchets, of flowers as lures for insects, of the rainbow as a splaying of wavelengths that ordinarily blend into white. ?It is the difference between stamp collecting and detective work, between slinging around jargon and offering insight, between saying that something just is and explaining why it had to be that way as opposed to some other way it could have been.
In this passage I want to know what the three underlined ‘it’ stand for.
I have made my answers.
?It : ‘the payoff’
?it : ‘the payoff’
?It : this is the most difficult part, in a way ‘It’ seems to refer to ‘the payoff’ as the other two, but it also seems to be able to represent ‘the uniquely satisfying understanding’ in another.
Can you check them out for me?
Regards.
Top answer
Stenka25 Can you check them out for me? Sure. I think it is Occam's razor to simply accept all 3 as aspects of the payoff.
- Stenka25 Can you check them out for me?
- Sure.
- I think it is Occam's razor to simply accept all 3 as aspects of the payoff.
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3 Answers
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Stenka25Can you check them out for me?Sure. I think it is Occam's razor to simply accept all 3 as aspects of the payoff.
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Thanks a lot for your immediate answer, Mister Micawber.
I completely agree with what you imply with Occam’s razor.
What made me hesitate to conclude that the third ‘it’ refers to ‘the payoff’ was the ‘And’ before the second ‘it.’ If the author thought the third as ‘the payoff’ he would have put ‘And’ in front of the third ‘it.’
Am I too serious in minor details, or am I a re
I completely agree with what you imply with Occam’s razor.
What made me hesitate to conclude that the third ‘it’ refers to ‘the payoff’ was the ‘And’ before the second ‘it.’ If the author thought the third as ‘the payoff’ he would have put ‘And’ in front of the third ‘it.’
Am I too serious in minor details, or am I a re
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Stenka25Am I too serious in minor details, or am I a reasonable question-poser?I think you're relying on the grammar a bit too much. I myself try to understand what the writer is probably saying overall, even if the grammar leaves something to be desired. (Of course, I'm not always right! Communication is a tricky business.)
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