EDITORIAL

Reflections on science II. The language of bioscience

Previously we noted that biologists have always to beinformed by their a priori imagination. This is a natu-ral response to a human need to find connections, tocoax from the confusion concepts and knowledge ofthe familiar world of space, time, and causality. To dothis we rely, in part, on our experiences; we are em-piricists. Yet, as Kant (1724–1804) points out, thephenomenal world as a whole is also partly theproduct of our minds (a concept he calls ‘transcen-dental idealism’). It manifests continually as innerspeech, occasionally translated into verbal or writtenlanguage in order to benefit from human exchange.To paraphrase K.L. Berge (Stockholm University),each communication of this sort is information pro-cessing between two or more persons embedded in acontext and a situation. Thus, science is wholly de-pendent on language.

Language is mysterious: How is it that permuta-tions of words come to represent the phenomenalworld, even permutations that we have never heardor seen before? Wittgenstein (1889–1951) attempts toanswer this deceptively simple question with the ‘pic-ture theory of meaning’. For him, words in a sen-tence (and sentences in a paragraph) get theirmeaning because of the basic relation betweennames and objects. While this provides a peek intothe mystery of language, intuitively this is quite limit-ing a view; particularly to scientists who spend alifetime imagining the inductive constructs we calltheories.

The language of thought (‘intellectese’), like ourwritten and spoken language, has specific grammatic,syntactic, and semantic properties. Frequently, it is aprivate language, a stream of consciousness not avail-able for scrutiny by anyone else. It is our idiosyn-cratic representations of the natural world and ourmanipulations of these representations in a processwe call reflection. Sometimes we compress represen-tation into simple mental notation, �r2 when thinkingabout the area of a circle, 3.14 . . . , when thinkingabout � as an irrational number, and � when werealize that the irrationality of � results in the areaone calculates always being smaller than the true

area. In this way, we formulate the concept of a circle

in two-dimensional space.

My Webster’s defines concept as ‘an idea of some-

thing formed by mentally combining all its character-

istics or particulars’ or ‘an intuited object of thought’.

To grasp the concept of a circle is to know what it is

to be a circle. There is a closeness between being

able to define the word circle and knowing ‘circle-

ness’ as a concept. If one reads ‘protein’, one can

define it because one knows the concept of protein. If

one reads ‘zinc finger protein’, this is a bit more

murky because one is combining the concepts of a

metal and a body part with that of protein. Obvi-

ously, proteins do not have fingers but they do have

finger-like projections that are held together by zinc

atoms. ‘Zinc fingerness’, as it relates to proteins, is a

concept we can grasp and define; it is a most useful

metaphor.

Again to my Webster’s : metaphor is ‘an application

of a word or phrase to an object or concept it does

not literally denote, suggesting comparison to that

object or concept’, as in zinc finger. With the explo-

sive emergence of cell and molecular biology in the

last 20 years, biologic science is inundated with

metaphors. When an oral epithelial cell becomes a

salivary gland cell and not an enamel-making cell, we

call this cell commitment. Commitment is a human

behavioral word, which means to pledge or promise.

Certainly, cells do not sign contracts. Nevertheless,

the metaphor is most useful in helping us to know

the concept of a cell’s irrevocable choice (another

metaphor!) of being salivary gland or tooth. But

caveat emptor, as Peter Lawrence warns us, for

metaphors can become hyperbole, ‘allowing the

alchemy of spin to transform leaden pieces of infor-

mation into fools gold’ (Nature Rev Genet 2001;2:139–

141).

‘Intellectese’, concept, metaphor, communication,

these are the glue of our enterprise. Clever as they

will make us seem, they will not make us humble

before Nature’s magnificence. Only the poet can do

this:

190 �Clin Orthod Res 4, 2001/190–191

Editorial

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in

columns before me,When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add,

divide, and, measure them,When I sitting heard the astronomer where he

lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to

time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Walt Whitman (1819–1892)

Michael Melnick

Science Editor

191Clin Orthod Res 4, 2001/190–191�