Originally posted by wellwhatnow
In the field of sociology, this would fall under the basic heading of reification.
Reification is attributing to a concept a life of its own.
When reification involves only liinguistic conveniences, it's not really much of a concern, but sociologically speaking, our attitudes toward things
are often influenced by the way we articulate them.
For example, we often say that the crime in a given neighborhood is bad, when what we really mean is that criminal activity in that area is high.
Again, the former is easier to say, but from an academic perspective, it eliminates the human component of the problem and thereby makes the real
issue of crime more obscure.
Politicians are very fond of reification.
www.m-w.com...
For the most part, insurance rates are actuarily derived.