Comments by "Theodore Shulman" (@ColonelFredPuntridge) on "JUST IN: Ted Cruz Confronts Ketanji Brown Jackson Over Inability To Define 'Woman'" video.

@HemiBurns The definition would depend on context. "Woman" means something very different in a discussion of, say, neo-Darwinian biochemical evolution of an x-linked recessive genetic disease, from what it means in a play by Shakespeare or a novel by Robert Graves! And it might mean something different from all of those, in the context of a law which defines the term in an unconventional way. Did you know, for instance, that in one law (I don't remember which law it was but it's an often-cited part of American family-jurisprudence pertaining to divorce in the state of New York) the term "mother" is explicitly defined in the law's "definitions" section as including step-mothers? So if one of the parties to a lawsuit involving that law were to say "the law only says that the child's mother has authority over the child; the child's stepmother has no authority!" the judge would have to answer: "You are wrong, because the "definitions" section defines "mother" to include the stepmother; I therefore rule for your opponent here, not for you."
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It is certainly far above your capabilities.
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@noway742 Hardly! A remark about someone's religion is not the same -- not even "about the same" -- as a comment about his intelligence and capabilities.
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Can you define what a woman is?
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@HemiBurns Well, yes, I probably could, if I thought about the question. But you see, I AM a biologist (strictly speaking I am a retired antibody-chemist, but antibody-chemistry is a form of biology, obviously, and most of my career was in the business of inventing antibody-based medications, which is a bio-science), so the fact that I can define what a woman is doesn't have any bearing on Ketanji Brown-Jackson not being able to define it because she's "not a biologist". But this is all moot anyway, if you take the trouble to watch or read what she actually said. She was talking about the fact that many laws have "definitions" sections which define the terms used in the text of the particular law, including terms which are commonly used differently in ordinary conversation. Words like "woman", "parent", "child", "mother", "father", "caregiver", and part of the judge's job is to interpret the law according to the definitions given in the law, or, if the "definitions" section doesn't include the term in question, according to current technical/scientific jurisprudence, not according to the way a stupid uneducated grunt/hick like Senator Blackburn might use the term in ordinary speech. (Oh, I shouldn't call her "uneducated": she did graduate from college with a major in ... home economics!!! LOL).
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@HemiBurns The point is you can define "woman" many different ways, and a judge is supposed to define it in the way which is most relevant to the case she is presiding over and judging, according to the definition given by the relevant law itself, if it gives one. The judge is NOT supposed to walk into the courtroom carrying the burden of a pre-decided definition.
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