What are those scientist saying? Who knows, it's all Greek to me.

I once asked my mom what she thought I would be when I grew up. She said she always thought I would be a doctor or a veterinarian. From childhood, I displayed analytical skills and an inquisitive nature characteristic of a scientist. Seventeen years later, she is not far off. I am a chemical engineer.

My studies of science and engineering (with a chemistry emphasis of course) have changed my ideas about legitimation, reality, and naming. The transitions happened so gradually and fit so well with my developed personality that I did not even realize it was happening. The most profound development was my mastery of a new dialect specific to science with a focus on chemical and engineering backgrounds. While reading “Circulating Reference”, the emphasis on dialect became apparent to me in two ways: the constant mention of recording observations and procedures in a notebook and the conversation regarding the soil texture (sandy-clay or clayey-sand). For example,

To translate, the sentence above states: viscosity decreases as shear rate increases for laminar flow; therefore, the fluid is a power-law, shear-thinning fluid with rheological parameters of n and K and a shear stress with units of pascals. Even when translated into plain English, this sentence can be confusing to those who have not been taught this dialect. This dialect is made up of Greek letters, mathematical symbols, relevant constants of nature (generally represented numerically or with a symbol named after the discovering scientist), and often trends, charts, and figures. A simple, 2D data plot can say a whole page worth of information. This dialect is the reason that scientists may seemingly be "speaking Greek" according to a person not familiar to the dialect (which the scientist very well might be as many scientific parameters are represented by Greek letters). However, a challenge that science currently faces is that most people do not speak or understand the dialect. Thus, misunderstandings about the data (aka those popular stories reported on the news such as “Dandelion Root Benefits Can Boost Your Immune System and Cure Cancer” or “Sugar as Addictive as Cocaine, Heroin”) can and do happen all too often.

I believe this dialect has been perfected across all disciplines of science as an instrument or tool for objective persuasion and conciseness. By objective persuasion, I mean that when presenting scientific results, the author means to persuade the reader that the conclusion generated was correct based on the data. This persuasion is performed by presenting ALL data (including the non-desirable points that may not necessarily support the conclusion) and allowing the reader to come to their own conclusion while guiding the reader through the procedures used to obtain and “work-up” (analyze) the data. If the science performed was worth-while and objectively performed, the conclusion of the reader will be the conclusion of the author. If the author’s conclusion is not sound based on the data gathered, it will be obvious to the readers and the author will lose credibility. Scientists tend to be a skeptical, realist group with a long memory.

The dialect of science is old but fluid. It finds its origins in the earliest settlements in human history that had any sort of writing or knowledge regarding architecture and building or manipulation of their environment. It is fluid because it has expanded and become more sophisticated over time as discoveries were and are made.