I’m a writer and a scientist. For both these jobs, I think a lot about words. Nothing brings me more joy than finding just the right word to describe what I find in nature. Further, nothing gives me more anxiety than seeing how sloppily we throw around terms and phrases in science. I worry that so many of the connections between our individual bodies of work are lost in translation when all the different camps use their own specialized phrases to describe what is essentially the same concept. To this end, a poem:
Whene'er I read papers, I can't help but feel that most of our buzzwords just spin the same wheel. The models we make hinge on what we can measure and measurements hinge on the time at our leisure. More, whether a factor holds import or no depends on how deep our hypotheses go. And since we seek patterns with broad application, one critical goal is precise appellation. But lo, I'm a lumper and my viewpoint is firm that each subject in nature needs not its own term. For the more we partition the way we confer, the more power we lose to connect and concur. If we aim to speak clear, Our conference to unfetter: In lieu of new words, Use the ones we have better.Continue reading “Words, words, words”
