A Terry Science Experiment

By Dave Semeniuk On November 12, 2007 · 4 Comments · In >archive, >commentary

This weekend, I attended Future Directions in Science Journalism, a unique collection of scientists, journalists, and a few others that were just interested in the future of…you guessed it.

Although there was no shortage of interesting fodder for discussion at the conference, one particular chord rang loud and clear among all the journalists in the crowd: the definition of “theory”. Theory means very different things to scientists and the public. Furthermore, as it seems to me, many scientific words have been either anthropmorphized or over generalized by journalists, and thusly have taken on altered, unique definitions in the collective public mind.

Being a good scientist, I thought I’d test this out. So please, Terry readers, define the following list in the comment section (in your own words…no cheating and looking it up online, or looking at the other people’s comments!)

Nature
Ecology
Genome
Theory
Scientific method
Statistical uncertainty

I’ll provide the proper definitions after.

Go!

4 Responses to A Terry Science Experiment

Terry » Archive » Wikipedia: Do you use it? Do you cite it? And, is it a good thing? says:

November 13, 2007 at 9:49 am

[...] A Terry Science Experiment [...]
Joanne says:

November 14, 2007 at 9:20 am

I’m scared to comment because your “challenge to readers” is too much like a test. I hope I don’t fail! I couldn’t resist piping up, though, because I’m worried about the disconnect between the language of science and that of popular culture. The value of of the word theory is a great example. As a scientist, I strongly value theories because they are well tested explanations that are built on many many facts. A theory, for example, holds much more value in my mind then a single fact (something that I know to be true) because it explains so many things. However in popular culture, the use of the word theory seems to focus on the uncertainty that is inherent in all scientific endeavor. I hope that as scientists we can get better at communicating what we mean when we say, “theory.”
Barry Landis says:

November 20, 2007 at 7:30 am

That’s interesting.

I read an MIT study on something called “blinking words”…ie words that shift meaning in organizations..’s in “The Dance of Change” I think..Clearing those up always seemed worthwhile, since a lot of it has political roots….and clearing the words probably does a lot to clear the environment. Fritjob Capra clarifies the word “Sustainability” in this lecture….

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6632954233185308758&q=fritjof+capra&total=18&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

I’ll do the word “theory”..I’m not a scientist..I always thought of a theory as an unproven explaination for something.

Barry
Terry » Archive » A Terry Science Experiment: Redux says:

January 10, 2008 at 11:34 pm

[...] came up in an earlier post of mine (here), written after I attended the Future Directions In Science Journalism Conference held at UBC last [...]