Reply To Comments On Defining Biominerals And Organominerals: Direct And Indirect Indicators Of Life [perry Et Al., Sedimentary Geology, 201,157-179]

摘要

Our paper is a discussion of the effects of terminology and of how words influence our thoughts and drive scientific investigations. The choice of words is as important in science as it is in literature. Here we reiterate that "We are all prisoners of language, and terminology has a subliminal effect on the way we think. In particular it can enable us to ask the right scientific questions and seek explanations to them." Altermann et al. (2008) question the justification of our Shakespearean reference. It served to highlight our contention that the connotative properties of terminology are important as well as their denotation and thus the relevance to lexicographic problems in science is clear. Placing scientific terminology in a wider context can help us see more clearly its underlying aims that are often obscured behind a mist of scientific jargon. As terminology (and indeed many other words) becomes altered or adapted with use and context, a clear restatement of definitions is often needed to prevent scientists "asking the wrong question and looking for the answer in the wrong places" (Oliver and Perry, 2006).