im being a little extra in replying here, but only because i used to think like many people in this thread until i met more people living with deaf and blindness, and i realized that i had a big (pun unintended) blind spot in my cultural understanding about disability.
being deaf means that you live in a wholly separate world compared to a hearing person, and it changes the way you understand things- its a whole separate culture, as rich and complicated as any other. it does not compare to a cough, and many would find such a comparison very insensitive. for an example, i would check out the movie "The Sound of Metal"
I was expecting this sort of comment, but everyone lives in their own world with their own culture and perspective, especially given the large immigrant populations in the West. Yet, the vast majority of people get by not being offended over phrasings that they could take as offensive to their cultural sensibilities if they really wanted to.
I remember being taught a similar thing as a child, about referring to people with disabilities as 'differently abled' instead of 'disabled', and similarly in my home country the government has made an effort to change the word for disability from one which means "improperly able" to "blessed" (poorly translating). But the former has not stuck, and the latter has not changed how poorly disabled people are treated there. Ultimately the changes turned out to be little more than feel-good virtue signaling.
In the same way, what does not using the word 'cure' accomplish in practice? Some word needs to be used in its place, which will take on the same meaning and in a few years people will be getting offended over that too (as any way of putting it will convey the reality that deafness is considered abnormal to the typical human experience). See the progression of terms that are seen as insults to one's mental faculties as a prominent example, even just within the last 20 years of online discourse that I've been around for, we've cycled through variations of retard (tard, reet etc) and are now in the process of doing the same thing with autistic (with the emergence of euphemisms like 'artistic') since the former is now deemed a slur.
Or, using a less provocative example, we don't change our language to be accommodating of religious communities who consider certain things to be insulting to their strongly held values or beliefs. We rightly point out that facts are more important than their feelings, regardless of how many hundreds or thousands of years old their culture and beliefs are.
Edit: If coughs are insensitive, we can instead look at tumors. There are many types in all parts of the body, some are so benign that they can be ignored, others are curable, others are cancerous and still curable, and yet others are so cancerous they are quickly terminal. Additionally, people afflicted with them tend to form a community due to shared experience. But would we stop talking about tumors colloquially as something which needs to be 'cured' because a portion of those in the community don't want to (or can't) get theirs cured?
this is great thinking. to me, the line to be drawn has a lot to do with lived experience. talking about deafness involved lots of people who live their entire lives affected by deafness, while discussing evolution affects peoples spiritual beliefs, which i see as largely a personal (if cultural) choice.
I guess it's a touchy topic these days. Some believe we shouldn't cater to people's beliefs and choices (is identity a choice? up to a point..); and especially not cater to what people might find offensive. I understand their point, because there are people who are overly sensitive and are offended by many normal things.
The use of the word "cure" in this context is a perfectly logical choice of wording. Should we even consider whether some deaf people are offended by this word? It seems like the polite thing to do, but maybe it's a slippery slope that compromises the objectivity of science and clear communication of scientific findings.
i thought this as well! you wouldn't say "autism cured". to many this must seem like a semantic argument, but Deafness is an entire culture and identity with hundreds of years of history
They can call it anything they want, but the moment they leave their "culture" and try to police our language they have to justify it on facts and not just assert that they feel a certain way. It's completely irrelevant to medicine if they have a culture or identity based around their disability.
Can you explain your reasoning behind putting culture in double quotes. You may do well to remember you also need to justify your use of your own words. The medical industry does not (and shouldn't) have the last word on language relating to disability. It would well be worth you reading into the medical model of disability vs the social model of disability. In short: medicine doesn't always work out in the best interest of people with disabilities, hence society becoming more aware and accommodating of people with disabilities actually supports people with disabilities more than medicine.
I get what you're saying but I'm not going to legitimize a community based around the continued existence of a disability. As science advances, more will be cured and eventually everyone will move on and forgot about whether in the year 20XX people were offended by having deafness cured.
Sorry to see you've been downvoted. For those not familiar with the Deaf community, it is correct there is a Deaf culture with many people who identify as Deaf and indeed there is hundreds of years of history.
like someone mentioned in a separate comment, you are conflating disease with disability here. when people become too old to walk without assistance, you wouldn't say that they have a walking disease.
> when people become too old to walk without assistance, you wouldn't say that they have a walking disease.
Why not? We have some peculiar cultural memes related to accepting the inevitable end of life, which we perhaps should revisit. I see no reason to not consider aging itself as a slow-burn disease, one we'll hopefully cure at some point too.
Well, peculiar now, given the understanding of biology we gained over the last 70-ish years. Individually, it still makes sense, but at social level, it stops us from working on fixing the problem.
> like someone mentioned in a separate comment, you are conflating disease with disability here. when people become too old to walk without assistance, you wouldn't say that they have a walking disease.
This girl's disease was a genetic auditory neuropathy.
They cured her genetic auditory neuropathy.
Pedantic arguments about what it's called are missing the point. The person had a specific disease. It was cured.
to you, this is a pedantic argument. but to millions of Deaf people in the US alone, this is a very important political point. for example, lots of Deaf people who prefer to live without cochlear implants face lots of pressure from people who consider deafness to be a "disease" to be "cured", when in fact, they feel their most authentic way of living to be something different. in this way, language is significant
And people who do prefer to live with cochlear implants face pressure from the deaf community itself. You can't win. This was an achievement. A girl who probably saw this as a cure, saw success. Why can't we just be happy for her instead of detracting because others wouldn't make the same choice?
It's generally believed that Fermat thought he had a proof, but probably almost immediately remembered that not everything is a Unique Factorization Domain, so the "obvious proof" fails. Then he didn't bother returning to correct the error.
So no, probably not.
(+) I should go and learn more about the specifics of this to make sure I'm relating it correctly.
I just recently learned that the note in Fermat's margin was published posthumously by his son! So Fermat never necessarily publicly claimed to have a proof. So I would imagine you're absolutely correct.
i've yet to see reporting on this that is not sourced directly from the IDF - who are accusing dead men based on "intel" that they've found after a bombing
being deaf means that you live in a wholly separate world compared to a hearing person, and it changes the way you understand things- its a whole separate culture, as rich and complicated as any other. it does not compare to a cough, and many would find such a comparison very insensitive. for an example, i would check out the movie "The Sound of Metal"