Experimenting in Tongues: Studies in Science and Language

Science and language interact in more ways and more subtly than might at first be thought. Most obviously, scientists cannot communicate their findings without the use of language, even if it is a symbolic one, which cannot deal with all needs. Language is inherently unstable, as is shown clearly in McWhorter's (2002) book; this would be more obvious if the invention of printing had not massively slowed down the process of change in Western languages. Since scientific communication depends heavily on linguistic stability and consistency, science would have advanced far more slowly in the absence of printing. As it is, scientists over the centuries have lamented the inadequacy of language to express what they want to say, and explored the use or creation of artificial languages.

This volume is the product of a conference on language as an analogy in the natural sciences, held in Munich in 1997, and consists of seven papers selected from those given. (Since it was attended by no more than 16 people, it must have been more like a seminar than a conference.) The first paper, by the editor, serves as an admirable introduction to the whole volume, which “see[s] the history of science through the lens of scientists’ references to language”. Language is frequently used as metaphor by scientists, both for explanation and as a creative tool; and scientists are not alone in speaking of the “book of nature”, the “book of life”, the “genetic alphabet” (Crick called it the “text of life”), “reading the genetic code”, and “programming languages”.

Since the arguments in the various essays are often complex and have little relevance to information science, I shall mention only a very few of the issues discussed.

Efforts were made in the nineteenth century to use the development of language as an analogy for the development of the natural world. As Richards explains in his essay “The linguistic creation of man”, Darwin had a persistent interest in language and its place in evolution, since it is a main feature that distinguishes Homo sapiens from the primates. His explanation of the need of man to develop such a large brain is that as language developed it affected the growth of the brain (he believed in the inheritance of acquired characteristics). Richards attributes Darwin's evolutionary pluralism ultimately to Humboldt and Hegel.

Suhr's essay “Is the notion of language transferable to the genes?” considers numerous attempts to make such a transference, takes a critical view of most of them, and ponders “scholars’ surprising persistence in applying the language metaphor to genetics’. Keller too looks at genes, in ‘Language in action: genes and the metaphor of reading’, taking as her starting point a quotation of Weismann dating to 1904. In this and the preceding two chapters, the dominant role of German linguists and scientists is striking.

Of interest to historians of science is Geneva's ‘The decline and fall of astrology as a symbolic language system’. Astrology had a most important place in the first half of the seventeenth century, not least as a ”starry language” which conveyed God's meaning to man – if, of course, it was properly interpreted. It survived satire but not advances in the physical sciences and the collapse of the Neoplatonic universe.

Réaumur tried to make thermometers that would be accurate and consistent with one another – to “speak” (his own term) to people and to one another. This use of a linguistic metaphor seems to be the only justification for the inclusion of Licoppe's chapter on the matter.

With Pflüger's “Language in computing” we reach more familiar ground. It is argued that computer languages are not just mathematical formulations but mediate between artefacts and human beings. Metaphors used changed from coding schemes and then language to construction, and then back to language interacting with users. If I found the essays by Richards and Geneva the most interesting, Pflüger's seemed to me to be the best in its combination of historical interest, insight and ability to provoke thought.

Good though most of the essays are, they all deal with highly specialised aspects of a specialised subject area. They are likely therefore to be of professional value to few people, except those who want to expand the range of knowledge or maybe want a stimulus for fresh ways of looking at language and science.

I would have found it helpful if the numerous notes and references had been attached to their appropriate chapters rather than being gathered all together at the end. It would also have been useful to have a consolidated bibliography. The price is remarkably low for a book that cannot expect large sales.