References to language abound in the sciences: biologists speak about
"reading" the human genome and "rewriting" the genetic code, computer
scientists develop "programming language," and mathematicians seek a
"universal symbolic language." What is behind these references to
language, and what do they say about how science actually works? This
concise but ambitious volume brings together leading scholars in the
history of science to address these questions from a variety of
perspectives: the historical, methodological, and ideological
motivations behind scientists' use of language metaphors. In so doing,
they ask whether and under what conditions analogies to language gain
power, whether and under what conditions they are replaced by more
fruitful ones, and, crucially, whether nature ever really operates and
develops like a language.
Against recent trends in rhetorical studies of science, the essays in
the volume resist reducing language to a role as the symbolic embodiment
of "larger" social forces. Instead, they focus on language's productive
power as a generator of knowledge. For scientists in various
disciplines, language is much more than a means of expression through
which they preferentially argue their cases. It is a conceptual tool for
scientific inquiry, and the choices scientists make vary over time with
their ever-evolving knowledge about language and, equally, with shifting
interests and means of inquiring into nature. The essays thus
demonstrate a situation of mutual adaptation between the linguistic and
scientific realms, and of continuous adjustments between knowledge about
language and knowledge about nature.
