So They Say

"Building More Barriers" "Sen. Rockefeller on Japan" "Space Flight's New Law," "NSF Director on Physics Funding," by Erich Bloch "A Time To Publish, A Time To Recant," by Alex Weisskopf "Political Promises," by Bob Davis "Getting the Best Science," by Anthony S. Fauci "Science's Stamp Collectors," by Luis Alvarez No doubt about it; science can be tough to put across, and the areas furthest from everyday experience are the toughest, so one might suppose scientists would be anxio


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No doubt about it; science can be tough to put across, and the areas furthest from everyday experience are the toughest, so one might suppose scientists would be anxious to remove unnecessary obstacles. It seems odd to me, then, that they are busy building more barriers by taking experientially named, self-explanatory scientific units and giving them new honorific names, which convey nothing at all to the uninitiated. This is called jargon.

Put yourself, if you can, in the place of that “man on the street,” who has, perhaps, some modest smattering of science, and compare what is conveyed to ...

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