"CE" Is an Abomination in Our Sight

[Urq Rex]

Here's a good topic for the Misfits of Science forum: the aesthetic horror and factual error that is CE, or "Common Era".  The proper and far more accurate term is of course AD, meaning "Year of the Lord".  As distinguished from BC, meaning "Before Christ".

There is no such thing as the common era.  Such an era certainly didn't start in 1 AD.  The reason 1 CE is called 1 CE and not 540 CE or something is because of a rather uncommon event: the birth of Christ.  There is no other reason for AD to start at that time.  It's not as if we're commemorating the Battle of Actium.

The purpose of such euphemisms is to disguise facts, which scarcely seems an appropriate justification for scientific terminology.  The purpose of most PC terms (such as the wildly inaccurate "African-American") is fear of offending people who wouldn't be offended anyway, which the people who make up this stuff would know if the got out more.

Sadly, that may not be the case in the scientific community, especially the academics.  These people may actually be offended by the very idea of using the more accurate terms BC and AD.  These terms may make them feel horribly oppressed just by having to look at them in a paper.  Which is sad.

Discuss.  Or more likely not.

[Edward]

Not the sort of thing that I normally obsess about, but a quick review of the matter suggests to me that the finger of hypersensitivity is properly pointed at ye modern Christians.  Not only does CE predate PC, it can just as easily mean "Christian Era."  So let that be your little secret and get over it, eh?  Unless, that is, the modus operandi of your faith based reasoning is to seek out and latch on to that which interferes with the fit of one's panties.  Silly bird.

 

[Urq Rex]

Then why is it often spelled out as Common Era?  At least they could say XE for Xtian Era.

The locution "can just as easily mean" is intriguing.  So CE doesn't actually mean anything?  Have there been studies done to ascertain what CE means and how it came into use?

My controversial theory would be that it came into being specifically to replace and obscure AD.  Even though the only dividing line between BC and AD (or, indeed CE and BCE) is an Event That Must Not Be Named, Even By Abbreviation.

[Edward]

I found the Wikipedia entry for CE sufficient.

[Urq Rex]

I think we should sacrifice accuracy for the concept of "wishing to be sensitive" in all scientific journals.

[topazz]

 thoughts, anyone?

[Urq Rex]

AD and BC were perfectly fine for my textbooks.  It's been changed for the same reasons that George Washington Carver (inventor of the peanut) gets more space than Abraham Lincoln in history textbooks.  To obscure truth and not offend people.

Science journals should not rigidly use terms which are not only inaccurate, but are intentionally inaccurate.  Sort of goes against the whole idea of science.  

[Dawn Coyote]

Nope. No thoughts here.

[Archaeopteryx]

...that AD and BC are inaccurate, since Christ wasn't born in 1 AD (latest research has him born in 1947 in Oxnard, California).  And, as Ender's link points out, the term "common era" has been in use since at least the 16th Century, so it's not exactly the PC police that are pushing it.  

[Urq Rex]

Dear Lord.  How lame is that.  Anyway, Ender the Rabbit (and his link!) also made clear that CE has no meaning, in that nobody can quite figure out what the C stands for.  How can this be, that an acronym which is insisted upon by the editors of all scientific journals doesn't in fact have any words behind the letters?  It's a free-standing acronym.  Which is a manifest absurdity.

AD may be off by as many as four years, but it accurately expresses the sole reason for the division between AD and BC.  CE is insisted upon in modern times for one reason: it obfuscates.

[Archaeopteryx]

...use MYA, as in "million years ago."  

[Sinan]

Could it have something to do with a universal calendar being adopted by all the nations of the world? CE would be a secular term that would not offend non-Christian nations. How would you feel if we adopted the term : AM or BM?

[Urq Rex]

Mainly because there is no circumstance outside Dune novels that anyone espousing AM and BM could get anyone else to agree on their calendar.  And I see no reason why non-Christian nations (?!) should be offended, or indeed that is possible for nations to be offended. But even if they were offended, the more accurate term should be used.  We use AD for a reason.  To obscure that reason is by definition obscurantist.  Obscurantism is the antithesis of science.

[Sinan]

Its a line in the sand of time for use in practical discussions about the past and as a means of measuring the future. It's obvious that the Western World won in this contest of nations with regards to universal acceptance of this arbitrary line. When I read Borstiens "The Discoverer's" a long time ago, I remember an entire chapter on time and how we ended up using the current system. I think it was fairly recent that the world accepted one calendar and clocking system. He had a reference to the battle of Waterloo I believe where the various armies did not have identical timing pieces and ended up being at the right spot at the wrong time. I am not really sure why you are bringing this up as some sort of proof of political correctness. This argument reminds me of the "Judeo-Christian" origins of our nation argument. It only serves a point for making a point about nothing really at all Urq buddy....