the briefing room

One of the world’s top academic journals is begging scientists to speak plain English — or German, or Chinese — instead of the “insane newspeak” of jargon that’s only used for showing off.

The editorial in the current edition of Science says that as the technology for communication improves, scientists are becoming worse and worse at talking.

Scientists and people who study the arts long ago stopped talking, it says. But today, “a degradation of verbal communication is now threatening to open up rifts even within the sciences.”

The editorial is written by Gottfried Schatz, a biochemist at the University of Basel and former head of the Swiss Science and Technology Council.

Biology is the worst offender, he writes.

“Most lectures on biological topics appear so overloaded with unnecessary information, so obsessed with technical detail, and so cluttered with abbreviations, jargon, and acronyms as to be nearly incomprehensible to anyone but the specialist …

“When attending lectures was still part of my daily routine, I had become accustomed to this insane newspeak, but now I recognize it as a serious threat to our scientific culture.

“A lecture designed to impress rather than inform usually does neither. Instead, it drives a wedge between different disciplines and promotes scientific fragmentation.” .. Read More