I got a little bit behind on my research this week, so I don’t have anything prepared for this week’s episode of Sciency Words. However, I recently stumbled upon this video which seems thematically appropriate in relation to the Sciency Words series.
It’s a TED Talk with Jack Horner, the world famous paleontologist who discovered Maiasaura and demonstrated that some dinosaur species did, in fact, take care for their young. If you remember Alan Grant from the original Jurassic Park, Jack Horner served as the real life inspiration for that character.
The TED Talk is about how dinosaurs get their names and how that naming process has led to some pretty glaring scientific mistakes.
Sciency Words is mainly a series about science, but it’s also about linguistics and the philosophy of language. Words have power. They shape our thoughts, and they can change the way we understand and experience the world. And as Jack Horner’s TED Talk illustrates, if we’re careless about the words we choose to use, then our words can mislead us, and we can end up blinding ourselves to things that should be obvious.
Planet Pailly 