My experience as an anthropologist has taught me to resist the idea of trying to find too much similarity between peoples. It is often connected to presumptions, prejudice, and arrogant hubris.
So I do agree that "do no harm" is a good ethical principle, I think that dan was thinking more about heuristic principles. And to go back to "do no harm", I have found lots of historical harm in the world of social science in its attempts to universalize and generalize. It is a very very very slippery slope, that I feel humanity is probably unqualified to mountaineer at this point in our soci-economic-political history. -- dave On Dec 27, 2007 2:42 PM, Sebi Tauciuc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 09:08:36, dave malouf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > Of course, at a biological level we all receive signals > > neurologically at the some level of commonality. > > > According to Pinker's "How the Mind Works", we are all the same more than > just on a neurological level. We have several mechanisms (language, > learning, feelings etc.) that work in the same basic way for all humans, > even if they are adapted to context (culture, age etc.) and manifest > themselves in different ways. > > > > I also have seen how color interpretations change from culture to > > culture, where as "contrasts" are not seen as stark among some > > people's as others. yes, they are recognized as different. the same > > is true for musicality and other things we often take for granted > > within our academic communities. > > > Color interpretations change, yes, but the fact that they are interpreted > and given meaning applies to all cultures, I would guess. Same for > contrasts: they may not be as stark, but they are there, and probably > support the same interpretations in every culture (am I wrong?) > > What I'm trying to say is: since we are the same in more than just the > biological level and we share common mental mechanisms, then surely there > must exist some universal principles of design that apply to those very > mechanisms we have in common, although the way they are applied will be > adapted to different contexts. > > Sebi > > -- > Sergiu Sebastian Tauciuc > http://www.sergiutauciuc.ro/en/ -- David Malouf http://synapticburn.com/ http://ixda.org/ http://motorola.com/ ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
