It's been awhile since I've done a "hot take". H Block Study Hall helped to come up with a topic. A common question that is asked (by students trying to distract their teachers) is "Is a hotdog a sandwich?" There are multiple ways to answer this question. First we have to consider why (as one student asked) we feel the need to classify anything at all. Why can't we just let a hot dog be a hot dog, a sandwich be a sandwich, and a pizza be a pizza? This ability to place objects into categories has been studied quite a bit. Here's a quick summary . (TLDR: Categorization allows us to use the amazing power of our brains to form inferences about our world. As a downside, it can cause us to draw incorrect conclusions, which is especially damaging when applied to people). Anyway, placing things into groups is an incredibly human thing to do. Doing so is a basic expression of our humanity! (By this definition, Carl Linnaeus is one of the most human of humans)...
Blog started at my students' urging. Many different things will be talked about here.