Lots of great articles in this week's C&EN:
- Carmen Drahl looks at confusion in scientific terminology.
- Two articles on chemical weapons destruction: one in Libya, the other on Syria by Glenn Hess.
- From Alex Scott: Scotland has opened a biotechnology center. I see Ian Shott is involved.
- From Jeff Johnson, proposed legislation for aboveground chemical storage tanks. I'd sure like to know how this will improve things.
- From Ann Thayer and Rick Mullin, their writeup of Infomex -- looks like things are heating up.
- Neat cover story by Melody Bomgardner on food additives.
- An interesting look by Jyllian Kemsley at chemistry major, Miss Kansas winner and Army National Guard Sgt. Therese Vail.
- Finally, the story of a chemist involved in the civil rights movement -- did not know about that. Thanks, Maureen Rouhi!
As far as scientific terminaology, I think Feynman summed it up best:
ReplyDelete"The real problem in speech is not precise language. The problem is clear language. The desire is to have the idea clearly communicated to the other person. It is only necessary to be precise when there is some doubt as to the meaning of a phrase, and then the precision should be put in the place where the doubt exists. It is really quite impossible to say anything with absolute precision, unless that thing is so abstracted from the real world as to not represent any real thing."
All this hand wringing about semantics in science is just mental masturbation by pedantic, OCD types who seem to rise in the ranks of academia. The type who need to stroke their ego by brow beating students who understand a concept but haven't adequately prostrated themselves at the altar of conformity… or to be more precise, it's easy to win an argument when your opponent needs you to sign their thesis.
In the 1960 photo of Franklin McCain, the worker behind the counter looks like he's African American. So many white people didn't dislike all black people, just equal black people.
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