My latest column for Visual Thesaurus, "Bad Science," has just been published. It's a selective list of scientific and mathematical terms that are frequently misused by the press and especially by corporate marketing departments. Yes, you'll need to subscribe to read the whole article (what are you waiting for? A year's subscription is only about $20), but here's a taste:
A fraction is not "a tiny amount"; it's any part of a whole. Nevertheless, we frequently see passages like this one, from a San Francisco Chronicle article about Hawaiian Airlines: "Hawaiian will offer one departure from Oakland and one flight back from Honolulu each day. That's a fraction of the multiple flights formerly operated by Aloha and ATA." What fraction are we talking about — one-sixteenth? One-half? Ninety-nine one-hundredths?
Other words that made the list: autistic, average, DNA, exponential, parameter, perfect storm, quantum leap, and schizophrenic. And I have a few things to say about paradigm shift, too.
What other examples of misused scientific terms can you think of?
But... M-W and the AHD have "A small part; a bit" and "bit, little" as definitions of "fraction".
Posted by: goofy | July 14, 2008 at 08:18 AM
Epicenter. Maybe it's already on your list, but I don't know since I have not yet ponied up the $20.
Posted by: Bob Cumbow | July 14, 2008 at 09:43 AM
Anything to do with percentages is almost certainly wrong, especially if a number is becoming smaller than its previous value.
Posted by: Tim Hicks | July 14, 2008 at 10:28 AM
Have we lost the battle on "decimate" yet?
Posted by: Karen | July 14, 2008 at 05:45 PM
@Karen: The battle is lost. See Ben Zimmer, among others: http://blog.oup.com/2008/01/decimate/
@Bob: "Epicenter" is a good one. Thanks.
@Tim: Um...I'm not sure I follow, exactly, but if you mean what I think you mean, well, right on!
@Goofy: Point taken (I use other dictionaries). But I stand by my claim that "a fraction of" is needlessly ambiguous in usages such as the one I cited.
Posted by: Nancy Friedman | July 14, 2008 at 05:55 PM
"Significant" was always a favorite of mine. A significant difference in statistics means a real, measurable difference - but people often use it to mean a /large/ difference.
Posted by: Paul Prestidge | July 14, 2008 at 09:06 PM
Not sure if it qualifies a science term, but how about "steep learning curve." Originally it meant that the subject learned a lot really quickly, but people now assume that it means the early going is really difficult.
Another consistently misused term -- again, not specific to science -- is "crisis." Politicians and journalists love to call any bad situation a "crisis."
Posted by: Roy Jacobsen | July 15, 2008 at 01:49 PM
@Roy: Yep, "steep learning curve" qualifies! I didn't include it because I'd covered it a couple of years ago in a post about clichés: http://is.gd/Ufd (What? You hadn't committed it to memory?!?)
And "crisis" is an excellent addition. Thanks!
Posted by: Nancy Friedman | July 15, 2008 at 01:59 PM
"Differential" -- a term reserved for calculus, seems to have nearly replaced the far more accurate "difference" among sportscasters. E.g.: "There is a four-second differential [read, difference] between the shot clock and the game clock."
Posted by: Jordan Kroop | July 16, 2008 at 05:11 PM
@Jordan: Yep. That extra syllable: soooo much classier.
Posted by: Nancy Friedman | July 16, 2008 at 06:43 PM