Ten Sins of Science Writing
LernerMedia Global’s whimsical guide to editorial transgressions. © K. Lee Lerner. LernerMedia Global
English is the language of science because of its ability to precisely transmit, nuanced information. With a polyglot junk-shop vocabulary that is thousands of words larger than those of other Western European languages, English can cut and shape data like a scalpel. Alas, when dull blade is used, the pain can be excruciating for editors and readers alike.
After writing many hundreds of articles and editing several thousand more — and with a humble acknowledgment of my own feet of clay – I’ve compiled the following top-ten list of the unfathomable.
#10. The use or misuse use of abbreviations from dead languages
Avoid the abuse and misuse (i.e., the improper (e.g., over or under use of)) use of abbreviations (e.g,. et al.), i.e., the improper use of abbreviations (especially from dead languages).
i.e. stands for id est “that is to say”
e.g. or E.g. stands for exempli gratia “for the sake of an example”
et al. means “and all.” Note that “et” is not followed by a period.
In the United States, proper and appropriate use is now a mandated, but unfunded, part of the Federal “No Reader Left Behind” Act.
#9. Improper use of “since”
Example: “Since the mote lodged in the editor’s eye, he drank to reduce the pain.”
Since relates to time. The above sentence means that the editor drank after the mote lodged in the editor’s eye. If the cause of the pain was the mote, the sentence should read, “because the mote lodged in the editor’s eye caused pain, the editor drank.”
#8. Use of “…was the father of …”
Never use the trite cliché “father of” attributions. Instead, please use the trite cliché “pioneer.”
Facts, theories, fields of study — and arguably some researchers — are really bast@#!$. At best, most theories are born after an unattributable orgy of thought.
#7. Using quotation “marks” to add “emphasis” to “thoughts” or “words.”
This is both annoying and time consuming because editors must rip out such usage. It is also lazy writing.
Quotation marks, italics and bolding have specifically reserved uses articulated in the style guidelines (e.g., quotation marks for quotations, italics for foreign words, book titles, etc.)
#6. Overuse of dangling or naked qualifications and assertions such as “…was really important to the advancement of…”
Some use may be appropriate when writing for general audiences, but overuse is lazy writing. Readers may actually one day be so bold as to wonder, “How?” or perhaps, “Why?” If you understand quantum probabilities you will understand that such student interest might possibly happen.
Seriously, student interest could happen!
#5. Asserting the absurd.
Example: “If Watson and Crick had not discovered the structure of DNA, we would not understand the genetic code…”
In almost all cases, other researchers were hot on the heels of those given historical credit. Only the names and dates of publication in nature and Science would have changed for history. Truly exclusive, “far ahead of their time,” insights are rare.
#4. Wasting words on anthropic thought and other useless digressions.
Anthropic exemplars are often interesting, or amusing, but should be avoided, Most are equivalents of a Cheech and Chong skit. For example, “if the strong nuclear force is increased by two percent, protons would not be able to form, and if decreased by 5 percent, stars would not be possible. So if the strong nuclear force was much different, life would not be possible.”
Wow, man! “So, like, … like if our universe is just like an atom in, like, some giant’s fingernail, then, like, there could be millions of, like, universes in my fingernail and in each of those universes there could be….”
</inhale>
#3. Misuse of scientific terminology (e.g. wavelength, energy, frames, fields, inertia, etc. ), especially when mixed into a witches’ brew of half-baked psudoscience with the intent to make text sound more scholarly or scientific.
Some misuse of terminology is commonplace and not too harmful to the general reader. Example: “The Sun transfers its energy to…” or “The chocolate supplied the energy to…”
In reality, energy is an attribute of a system, not a substance that can be transferred as a physical substance. Systems can interact with other systems and in so doing energy (in whatever form it is described or measured) may increase in one system and decrease in the other. However, “energy” is not “transferred.”
Energy is not a substance and it is most certainly not carbs! If it were carbs, food manufacturers would start putting large new labels on old product packages that scream, “No photosynthesis used in the making of this product” or “This product contains 0 g Energy!”
Besides, all those poor flabby Americans who spent so many years without fat in their diets that a pat of real butter now puts them to sleep faster than Ambien, and who now track carbs as though they were metabolic terrorists will never know the real energy balance created by good French pastry and a long walk or bicycle ride.
Other misuses of terminology should listed as weapons of mass deception. Example: Popular science fads such as ”Therapeutic touch”, that rely on “interpersonal energy transfer.”
<sigh>
#2. Hubris in totally ignoring Richard Feynman’s wisdom that, “The philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.”
Yes, it’s time for yet another episode of “Science Wars.”
Despite the rantings of delusional postmodernests advancing incandescently ignorant or simply silly culturalist relativist interpretations of science that are often nothing more than modern variations of Protagorean relativism, science is not “just another way of looking at the world.”
Science has earned its lofty status as the most significant way for humans to study, think, and agree because it has been historically successful in shaking off authoritarianism and the equally dangerous Hobbesian nightmare of “every man the judge of his own case.”
As Poincaré asserted, “Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.” Science is a building process — and it veers off course at time. But science also has self-correcting features the limit how far the winds of current bias or popular sentiment can take it off course, especially in comparison to other ways of knowing and describing the world.
Yet socio/cultural influence happened — and happens. Science research has been influenced by religious opposition and oppression and by social/political influences on research funding. Accordingly, there is a need for meaningful writing regarding the history of science that articulates the sometimes volatile mix of science, politics, and culture (including such disasters as Soviet Lysenkoism). Assertion of influence, however, requires articulation with evidence. More importantly, influence on the process of science needs to be distinguished from influence on science fact and theory. Remember: A spot on a horse does not make a zebra — it simply creates a spotted horse.
Science and history are precious fields of study. We want to respect, honor, and advance both.
Niels Bohr’s observation that “science doesn’t tell us what nature is; it only tells us what we can say about nature” provides ballast to science’s own potential hubris — but it does not create an open house for crackpots, or throw open the door to specious cultural relativism.
#1. The overuse and improper use of “belief” assertions
While all of the above sins are shameful the number one, uno, most important… greatest…”primeriest”….sin — aside from the use of made-up words, or venomous, pedestrian, pompous, opprobrious, scurrilous, scornful, impudent, patronizing approbations that are wordy and utilize a Euro word where a mere U.S. Dollar word will do, or the use of run on sentences such as this that would make Faulkner wince, is…
…<drum roll>... Assertions such as “Some scholars believe…” or “people believed…”
No one knows what anyone “believes.” Accordingly, you have no clue what Newton believed about gravity or what Watson and Crick believed as they developed a model for DNA. As a science writer, you can only specify what they wrote, stated, argued, asserted, made runic carvings depicting, etc. Such specifications greatly strengthen science writing.
To once again borrow from Dr. Feynman, “People and politicians don’t have any more idea what (scientists) are trying to do than the peasants in Italy knew what Galileo was up to.” That’s our job — to explain science.
Now, go ye (and me) and sin no more.
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