Leading Horses to Water
Ancient Greeks began the way of
thinking originally known as natural philosophy but which we now call
science. Science emerged as we know it during the Renaissance, in
an age dominated by fear, superstition, injustice, and brutality.
In other words, pretty much like the present. These musings are
aimed at explaining how science works, and how science can serve even
nonscientists in their efforts to make sense of the world. I can
try to explain things but it’s up to you to decide whether or not you
wish to drink from these waters.
#9 - The Language of Science
American Heathen: aired: 25 February 2012
No, this essay isn’t about mathematics, which some people have claimed
to be the language of science. Instead, think back to when you
first were introduced to science in school - a big issue arose:
scientists seem to speak a different language from the rest of
society. There are all sorts of strange words, some of them in
Latin or sounding like Latin, some of them very unfamiliar and
esoteric, some of them familiar words but used in a very strange way,
and all of it wrapped in what seems to be very dry and awkward prose.
I admit freely that at times, understanding what a scientist is trying
to say in a scientific journal article can be quite challenging,
indeed. It’s rather ironic that the very process of seeking
clarity can make the language of science so difficult to
understand! I’ve had the experience of trying to understand the
message coming from a scientist via the written word in a formal
paper. If it’s challenging for me, then I can just imagine how it
would come across to a layperson! In the case of some scientists
I’ve known personally, when they speak to me face-to-face, I can follow
their ideas with relative ease, but their formal papers remain
challenging to decipher. For the good scientists, this exercise
in struggling to understand their written prose is well worth the
effort because of the deep insight to be gained. In other
instances, after translating a challenging paper, it sometimes seems as
if it just wasn’t worth the effort! So I can relate to folks who
find the language of science opaque and uninviting.
We scientists often insert what are called “caveats” in our scientific
prose – these amount to qualifying remarks. Scientists strive to
be careful not to seem excessively confident, so if there exist issues
about our work that are problematic (and there almost always are!),
we’re duty bound to talk frankly and openly about those issues and how
they affect any interpretation of the results we’re presenting.
This can seem to the layperson as qualifying our comments to an
excessive degree. Can’t we just state our results in simple black
and white terms? Well … actually … no. Anyone doing
research is required to acknowledge the limitations inherent in their
studies. To fail to include the caveats would be intellectual
dishonesty that’s simply forbidden in science. Scientific
research almost never produces unambiguous results! Our
interpretation of those results might apply to most of our data, but
there usually are some things that don’t quite match the
interpretations we provide. Or there are limitations on the
generality of our results – they may not apply to every conceivable
situation. The data we collect in our experiments and during our
testing of hypotheses have many possible limitations. To be
absolutely confident in our interpretations is simply not possible …
ever! The best we can hope for in such terms is that our
experimental data aren’t inconsistent with the interpretations we
provide. If they’re systematically inconsistent, then our
original ideas have been demonstrated to be invalid, and we have to
resume the search for understanding. At least we will have
provided a reasonably convincing negative result – our ideas just don’t
match the data we collected.
Another frustrating issue associated with the language of science is
jargon. Many scientific ideas are not described well by ordinary
words, so we invent new words for them (like vorticity or
baroclinic). We also recycle old words, giving them new
meanings. The hope is that fellow scientists will accept a
proposed precise definition for such terms, and all scientists then
will understand what those new words imply. An example of a new
scientific meaning for an old word is the word “chaos” – dictionary.com
defines chaos (a noun) as:
1. a state of utter confusion or disorder; a total lack of organization or order.
2. any confused, disorderly mass: a chaos of meaningless phrases.
But recent research into the dynamics of nonlinear systems – it’s not
important to know just what this phrase means – has given a precisely
defined new meaning to this word:
Chaos: the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions
Therefore, a physicist talking about “chaos” has a very precise meaning
associated with this word that likely doesn’t match the meaning
assigned to this word by a layperson.
The jargon of science in one field may differ significantly from that
in another field, even though the same (or similar) words can be
involved. Each subfield in science has its own unique jargon and
part of the challenge of participating in that field is that you’re
expected to learn and use the jargon properly. If we don’t agree
on what terms mean, how can we communicate? We end up with the
legendary Tower of Babel,
where no one can understand anyone else because they’re speaking
different languages! Interdisciplinary science often is plagued
with the Tower of Babel syndrome for this reason.
If we’re to communicate, then, we simply must agree on the meanings of
the words we use in the process. In ordinary conversation,
scientific precision of speech is uncommon. This can be
especially apparent in arguments that are purported to be logical –
human language isn’t always effective at communication, and the absence
of clear definitions makes it much worse. All of us, not just
scientists, struggle with this challenge.
Science
is not a religion but rather a tool for those who wish to think for
themselves about the natural world. Its primary characteristic is
its willingness to entertain questions from those who wish to obtain
believable answers.