Science : It's More Than Just Words

Science, like law and many another discipline is widely noted for its jargon.  I love jargon because I love language.  I love language because I was blessed with parents who loved language.  I came to love science through being taught its experimental and investigative methods at school, overlaid on a strong foundation of inquisitiveness built at home.  Through studying the science of linguistics I came to understand that language is a common thread in all human endeavors.  To understand any branch of human endeavor, one must understand first how language may lead or mislead.

I tend to focus mostly on the investigative, the forensic^* aspect of science.  Research is at the very heart of science.  For most people outside of science, 'research' equates to 'experiments'.  In fact, the first step in research is finding out what others have reported. 

Such knowledge can be used to refine the search for knowledge: by building on what went before, or by the tearing down of shoddily built structures.  Again, the public perception of science seems flawed.  One error in a stack of data does not invalidate the whole stack - unless, perhaps, it is a major error at the foundations of a whole theoretical structure.

Language knows no boundary except its own vocabulary.  If there are no words for a thing then we can neither discuss it nor even imagine it.  If, on the other hand there are indeed words for a thing then it is a legitimate area of study for any linguist.

I have studied many areas of science, law and economics from a perspective of the transmission of error through language.  That is my 'take' on science writing: find a popular misconception and try to explain the error and its source.

I have tried, and will continue to try, to do that regarding popular fallacies about global warming, glacier retreat, the non triviality of human activity at the planet-wide scale, etc.

I hope to write more on the topic of human impact on the planetary environment.  This has been an interlude in which I explain how a non-climatologist feels entitled to explain climatology.  Let others spin or weave their yarns.  I promise not to do that.  I will not give you spin, or slant, or paid-for opinion-pieces.  Just the facts.
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* forensic: using the methodology and norms of science and scholarship to determine the true facts of a matter being investigated.