Word Choice Matters

Scientists are from Mars, the public is from Earth, by Phil Plait, discusses a list of commonly-used words that science writers use, and how the public interprets them. For example, "theory" means "scientific understanding," but the public interprets it as "hunch, speculation." The word "manipulation" when used by science writers means "scientific data processing," but the general public interprets it as "illicit tampering."

Plait writes, "There are times I fret over a word in a post. It took me a while to start using the word "denier" instead of "skeptic", for example, but the difference is important. I’ve fought for years to teach people that skepticism is not cynicism or denial; it’s asking for and looking at evidence logically and rationally (in a nutshell). What’s funny is that now the media uses phrases like "climate skeptic" when talking about some people who are not skeptics, in that they are not looking at the evidence logically and rationally. They look at evidence so they can figure out how to spin it, cast doubt in the mind of the public over something that is actually a fact."

Can you think of other examples of what you meant/what they interpreted?

We brought back science books

The House of Glee visited friends and family in Portland, Oregon, this past weekend. We went to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) for the first time, and were impressed that the chemistry lab was an actual lab with chemicals and experiments, and the physics lab had a theremin and static electricity to play with. Bede and Lucia finally got to try freeze-dried ice cream, too.

The science section at Powell's Books now has its own building (along with math and technical books), which is new since we last visited Portland. It used to be that I could park myself in the science section while my daughter browsed the children's books. At Lucia's request, I got for her Jeff Kinney's The Wimpy Kid Do-It-Yourself Book, which occupied her attention for the rest of the trip. I would never have guessed that Diary of a Wimpy Kid would be the book to turn her from someone interested in stories to an avid reader, but that was the book that first grade boys carried around last year. While I am a little tired of hearing about the "cheese touch," I am getting a kick out of the drawings she's come up with.

I'll admit that I went to town in Building 2 of Powells. I found a used copy of Robert Zubrin's The Case for Mars, plus an out-of date but much enjoyed book both Bede and I pored over when we were children: National Geographic Picture Atlas of Our Universe, by Roy Gallant. I also decided to capitulate to the purchase of a few science and math Basher Books, a series aimed for children and published by Kingfisher. The books provide overviews and explanations of basic science and math concepts as first person anthropomorphized accounts.* The House of Glee currently owns the following:

Chemistry: Getting a Big Reaction
Physics: Why Matter Matters
Math: A Book You Can Count On
Algebra and Geometry

I hovered over The Periodic Table: Elements with Style at Ada's Technical Books today, but made myself practice restraint. Funds aside, we've got plenty to read. Speaking of funding, I always get a little frenetic around the time of Seattle Public Library's annual furlough because of budget cuts. I hope my fellow Seattleites have stocked up.

*August 26 update: The problem with giving objects and concepts personalities (as in the Basher Books) is that one inevitably has to deal with the sex of the anthropomorphized subjects. In Physics: Why Matter Matters, when personal pronouns came up, they were male. My daughter notices. I notice. She can change the text to suit her, i.e. decide that Gamma Ray and Photon representations are female, but she shouldn't have to. Inclusive language would have been so simple.