Ambiguity in Scientific Language: The Case of Biodiversity

Series: Conservation

Abstract: Scientists are often faced with unique challenges when they use concepts—like biodiversity—that extend far beyond the boundaries of the traditional scientific community. Inevitably, a term that’s used in areas as disparate as conservation biology, systematics, politics, activism, and law will give rise to a host of clashing definitions. Such use of ambiguous concepts in the sciences is marked by an important tension. On the one hand, ambiguity can help scientists to collaborate, both with one another and with the wider world. Even if we might disagree about the methods for measuring biodiversity, for example, keeping the term sufficiently vague could enable us to nevertheless find common ground. But on the other hand, this same ambiguity could prevent these different groups from being able to understand one another, or mask genuine and profound disagreement under a veneer of apparent cooperation. In this talk, I’ll try to present this tension, discuss ways that it has been theorized in philosophy and political science, and canvass some empirical methods for understanding its extent in the scientific literature.