Communication In Science

Casimir, Hendrik B.G.

There exists today a universal language that is spoken and understood almost everywhere: it is Broken English. I am not referring to Pidgin- English—a highly formalized and restricted branch of B.E.—but to the much more general language that is used by the waiters in Hawaii, prostitutes in Paris and ambassadors in Washington, by businessmen from Buenos Aires, by scientists at international meetings and by dirty postcard peddlers in Greece—in short, by honorable people like myself all over the world . . . The number of speakers of Broken English is so overwhelming and there are so many for whom B.E. is almost the only way of expressing themselves—at least in certain spheres of activity— that it is about time that Broken English be regarded as a language in its own right.

 Haphazard Reality
Chapter 4
Broken English (p. 122)

 Chargaff, Erwin

. . . there is no real popularization possible, only vulgarization that in most instances distorts the discoveries beyond recognition.

Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
Bitter Fruits from the Tree of Knowledge
Section III (p. 491)
Volume 16, Number 4, Summer 1973

 Compton, Karl Taylor

The whole history of scientific progress illustrates the importance of free communication of ideas, of co-operative work at all levels, of adequate support and facilities, and above all, of high grade research workers and top-notch leadership.

A Scientist Speaks (p. 11)

 Dornan, Christopher

Science is seen as an avenue of access to assured findings, and scientists—in the dissemination of these findings—as the initial sources.
The members of the laity are understood purely as recipients of this information. Journalists and public relations personnel are viewed as intermediaries through which the scientific findings filter. The task for science communication is to transmit as much information as possible with maximum fidelity.

Critical Studies in Mass Communication
Some Problems of Conceptualizing the Issues of
“Science and the Media” (p. 51)
Volume 7, Number 1, March 1990

 Gibbs, Willard

Science is, above all, communication.

Attributed
In H.N. Parton
Science is Human
Science and the Liberal Arts (p. 11)

 Ingle, Dwight J.

Science cannot be equated to measurement, although many contemporary scientists behave as though it can. For example, the editorial policies of many scientific journals support the publication of data and exclude the communication of ideas.

 Principles of Research in Biology and Medicine
Chapter 1 (p. 3)

Maslow, A.H.

I do not recall seeing in the literature with which I am familiar, any paper that criticized another paper for being unimportant, trivial or inconsequential.

Motivation and Personality
Chapter 2 (p. 14)

Michelson, A.A.

Science, when it has to communicate the results of its labor, is under the disadvantage that its language is but little understood. Hence it is that circumlocution is inevitable and repetitions are difficult to avoid.

Light Waves and Their Uses
Lecture I (p. 1)

  Moore, John A.

. . . recall some of the lectures you may have heard recently. Did you always know why the research had been done?Was it clear what problem was being illuminated by the data presented?

American Zoologist
Science as a Way of Knowing (p. 471)
Volume 24, Number 2, 1984

Moravcsik, M.J.

New theories, when first proposed, may appear on the first page of the New York Times, but their demise, a few years later, never makes even page 68.

Research Policy
Volume 17, 1988 (p. 293)

Parton, H.N.

Scientists have the duty to communicate, firstly with each other, that is with those who are interested in the same or allied problems, and secondly with laymen: by layman I mean anyone not familiar with their special science, for specialization has raised the level of scientific achievement so much, that chemists, for example, are usually laymen in say, biology; we may hope, intelligent laymen.

 Science is Human
Science and the Liberal Arts (p. 12)

 Aldous Huxley, in a lecture on his grandfather, said that all communication is literature, and even in scientific writing there is wide room for the exercise of art.

Science is Human
Science and the Liberal Arts (p. 14)

 Roe, Anne

Nothing in science has any value to society if it is not communicated . . .

The Making of a Scientist
Chapter I (p. 17)

Seifriz, William

Our scientific congresses are a hodgepodge of trivia. The conversation is that of men on the defensive.

Science
A New University (p. 89)
Volume 120, Number 3107, July 16, 1954

 Wang, H.

. . . face-to-face discussion, complete with gestures, not only transmit ideas much more rapidly between specialists but also generally gets more directly to the fuller implications of ideas.

Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
The Formal and the Intuitive in the Biological Sciences (p. 528)
Volume 27, Number 4, 1984

  Ziman, John

Although the best and most famous scientific discoveries seem to open whole new windows of the mind, a typical scientific paper has never pretended to be more than another little piece in a larger jigsaw—not significant in itself but as an element in a grander scheme. This technique, of soliciting many modest contributions to the vast store of human knowledge, has been the secret of Western science since the seventeenth century, for it achieves a corporate, collective power that is far greater than any one individual can exert. Primary scientific papers are not meant to be final statements of indisputable truths; each is merely a tiny tentative step forward, through the jungle of ignorance.

Nature
Information, Communication, Knowledge (p. 324)
Volume 224, Number 5217, October 25, 1969

 It is not enough to observe, experiment, theorize, calculate and communicate; we must also argue, criticize, debate, expound, summarize, and otherwise transform the information that we have obtained individually into reliable, well established,

public knowledge. Nature
Information, Communication, Knowledge (p. 324)
Volume 224, Number 5217, October 25, 1969

 The clich´e of scientific prose betrays itself ‘Hence we arrive at the conclusion that . . .’ The audience to which scientific publications are addressed is not passive; by its cheering or booing, its bouquets or brickbats, it actively controls the substance of the communications that it receives.

Public Knowledge
Chapter 1 (p. 9)

 


Reference:

Gaither, C. C., & Cavazos-Gaither, A. E. (2000).Scientifically speaking: a dictionary of quotations (p.26). CRC Press.

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