INVOLVED TONGUE

Taranaki Daily News, 21 December 1935, Page 7

INVOLVED TONGUE

LANGUAGE OF MODERN SCIENCE. PLEA FOR SIMPLIFICATION. We have frequently drawn attention to the rapid and immense strides that are being made in the chemistry of the hormones and the vitamins, and have shown how closely related many of these substances are by deductions, from their mode of formation and their action in the living organism, says a writer in the Sydney Morning Herald. One of the great difficulties arising from the development of organised scientific study is the entirely specialised and (to the layman) unintelligible language and symbolism used. It has been said, apropos of man’s duplicity, that speech has been developed to conceal our thoughts. This is not the reason for the development of the language of science, and what is so productive of despair is the thought that the rapid development of so many aspects of scientific study will make it not only difficult for the layman, but for specialists in any branch, to understand the various dialects of scientific language. I feel certain that in the subject of the vitamins and hormones it is possible to make use of chemical symbols to indicate the close relationships existing. After all, what are these symbols but a form of shorthand to .express in compact form the systematic manner what chemists postulate as the structure of the molecule? The number of atoms (represented by the letters of the alphabet) is known accurately, so also is their nature. Their arrangement, however, certainly is not what is expressed in the diagrammatic schemes presented, if only in that they do not lie in one plane as our drawing must. Moreover, the atoms are not fixed in one place. The pattern, however, will readily convey a general impression, and it requires no chemical knowledge to see whether the pattern is repeated in different compounds. When it is further explained that the profound differences which are the basis of what we term sex are caused by the presence of one or other of these very similar molecules in quite minute quantities in the body, it seems reasonable to suppose that the layman will find as much to interest him in a close scrutiny of the symbols in order to find out why he or she is, respectively, a he or a she. A very slight chemical slip in the mixing of the concoction, and where would any of us be? So let us take courage from that thought when we scrutinise these symbolic representations which might have formed a ground design for some Shiraz carpet rather than the creation of chemical necessity.