I would like to begin my talk with a clarification on the title. The idea for this talk first came up with after the inauguration of Trump and the controversy surrounding his Twitter war with the National Park Service. However, this talk is at heart focused on problems in science communication that have been hindering the field for many decades and is now only coming to a light as the sciences are becoming one out of many professions under attack both in terms of our financing, but also in our ability to meaningfully play a role in society. So much of what we as botanists study involves climate change either indirectly or directly and this is the scientific field most in danger from the new administration.
With that, I first want to break down an outline of the talk. First I will trace the influence of Linnaeus to examine the ways he reformed language and created a new discourse. Then I wish to look at how narratives in science are constructed and disseminated. Finally, I want to evaluate the current crisis in science communication and provide possible suggestions for thinking how we (re)construct narratives and communicate science.
Our favorite French thinker, Foucault writes that, “What came surreptitiously into being between the age of the theatre and that of the catalogue was not the desire for more knowledge, but a new way of connecting things both to the eye and to discourse. A new way of making history,” and that what I am concerned about now. How do we as scientists connect things to the eye and to discourse? I will argue that perhaps, many of the problems facing science communication today, which can be characterized as a fracturing of our discourse, demonstrate a break of science from traditional systems from which it historically drew power. A new successful discourse requires a renegotiation of power, one that necessitates a different approach to how we communicate with the audience.
That is all very lofty and perhaps meaningless. So I first, like all botany lunch talks, want to talk about my travels and then give a fun history review of the historical linguistic and discursive reforms of Linnaeus and how that created a system that constructed the discursive space inhabited even to this day by botanists. This winter I went to L’Orto botanico di Pisa which was the world’s first botanical garden established by Cosimo I de Medici in 1544.
Here are some pictures I took of the garden, I highly recommend going the next time you all are in Italy. Here is a fountain on the path to the arboretum and here is some Adiantum in a fountain in the Cedar garden.
The actually have a pretty large and exciting collection of Salvia and a wonderful tropical house and succulent house as well. What was interesting for me was the design of the garden that preserved historical gardens and the ways by which they were arranged. There was a garden of herbs for historical medicinal uses and another garden of plants sorted by family. Walking through the garden was a trip through time of how plants were organized in gardens.
[here we see the layout of the oldest garden in the garden still extant]
It is the home of the very first herbarium, which was first invented by Luca Ghini of Imola as a novel way of referencing plants, instead of by descriptions or depictions in herbals or encyclopedias. His successor Andrea Celsalpino was a forerunner to Linnaeus and was well known for classifying plants according to fruits and seeds for the first time and distributed plants into genera and species. This work marked a shift away from herbals and illustrations influenced by Pliny and Dioscorides and was a part of a greater movement caused by the rediscovery of Theophrastus in the 15th century by Teodoro Gaza.
[An example of an herbal is here, the Juliana codex of Dioscorides, see the depictions of herbal medicine? That’s a mandrake]
Having myself (re)discovered Cesalpino here, I began to research him and found his thought as being distinct from the main school of organization in the Renaissance which was by “use of plants” and this renewal of an older paradigm of classification, that of the relationships of characters. It can be traced back to Theophrastus [shown over here] who was Aristotle’s pupil and successor and was pretty much the only thinker from Antiquity concerned with the nature of differentiating and defining plants. His philosophy can be summarized in this quote, “In considering the distinctive characters of plants and their nature, generally one must take into account their parts, their qualities, the ways in which their life originates, and the course which it follows.” Thinking about plants as defined in terms of their characters instead of their uses would be codified in a sense by Linnaeus and his linguistic reforms are still important to study because they still matter.
For example, there is an International Botanical Congress happening this year where the first week will be devoted to debating and voting on changes to the taxonomic code. Although much has changed in our understanding of plants and of organizing them with a taxonomy that reflects common descent, we still give names to plants within a system that structures how we speak about plants. It defines not only how one speaks, but of course who may speak as well. All scientific names need to be a part of this discourse in order to be considered valid science.
To better understand this, let us look at the man who created this discourse. Carl Linnaeus [here in traditional Lapland garb] was a Swede who rose to prominence in the 18th century with his reform of botanical nomenclature, the introduction of the binomial and the system of classification of plants by reproductive parts. His works provide the starting point for both valid botanical and zoological nomenclature. Names before Linnaeus are not to be recognized by the botanical code.
In thinking about binomial nomenclature, it is important to consider the tradition of the Classical Age from which Linnaeus worked and he did not invent something completely new. John Ray [seen here] first defined biological definition to species: things that spring from the same seed as the parent. Tournefort [seen here] was the first to make a define a clear distinction between genus and species as ranks. Likewise, Rivinus and Bauhins also advocated for a binomial naming system before Linnaeus.
What Linnaeus did, however, was to reform the language in a way that these ideas that were one among many, would then become acknowledged in a way that constrained what would be accepted as true. This new discourse of course exists as a manifestation of power, stemming from the fact that certain previously used methods of naming such as the polynomial became no longer valid. Similarly, in codifying the folk taxonomies of Europe, he did not necessarily change the names of things, but how these names were constructed and spoken of by standardizing the terminology and simplifying the grammar.
I want to just quickly illustrate this using some real examples. First however, what is a folk taxonomy? Simply put, it is any vernacular naming system that is generated from social knowledge and used in everyday speech. And if we look at the history of botanical Latin and folk taxonomy, illustrated by this great phylogeny from Chang and colleagues here at Berkeley, we find that if Latin had one name for a plant, by Linnaeus’ time there were twenty names in other languages all making their way back into botanical Latin.
A Linnaean scholar Stannard in the Eighties gave some good examples of this in his 1985 paper to show the diversity in folk names of plants such as dog rose known from antiquity.
And of some note is the wonderful way that folk taxonomies parallel binomial nomenclature as perhaps a natural relationship between the noun and the adjective. Here, is a good example of Shepard’s purse, or bursa pastorum, which Linnaeus preserved as Capsella bursa-pastoris. [Look at it here]
So, in resolving folk taxonomy Linnaeus actually preserved many of the names, but changed how they were named. For example, one method he used was taking a two-word Latin name and make it binomial e.g. vitis vinifera (noun + adjective, “wine-producing vine” and vitis vinifera genus species). Or, taking a previous Latin or Greek name and making it binomial e.g. English Ivy which in Greek is ἕλιξ (“anything that assumes a spiral shape”) and in Latin is hedera.
Other ways he resolved folk taxonomy was: Choosing one character of the older phrase name that was the best differentia e.g. dill: anethum or anethum hortense becomes Anethum graveolens; also using a geographic epithet e.g. Ulmus americana.
So in this example we see how a new discourse was constructed by Linnaeus, not be coming up necessarily with new names for things, but by shaping how names were constructed and used and providing a system by which an ideology and narrative becomes dominant. What do I mean by narrative, it is the stories we create to make sense of what we perceive. By creating a more-or-less standard terminology and a simplified grammar, by removing the verb, especially “to be” from naming, Linnaeus creates what Foucault describes as the “nomination of the visible.” It is different from the Renaissance narratives that took into account the “whole” of plants that embodies in-itself a strange quality, that of herbals, fables, and legends, as this whole now becomes a categorized into a structure of parts. Linnaeus’ reforms were successful insofar as they gave a grammar to the imperial gaze.
And what do verbal names look like. We can look at some Latin polynomials, but also at various Indigenous names for plants. For example, Geum macrophyllum (Yellow Avens) has many names for the Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest, for the Chehalis: t’sit’sialk’um “a prairie that sings” and for the Quileute: ko ‘lukwl “it makes your skin break”. Fragaria chiloensis (Wild Strawberry) for the Quileute: tobia’ ’a ‘put “pick-them-up berries.” The difference should be clear, hear the verbal names paint a picture of a plant of the whole, the nominated binomial is a naming by parts.
And this is precisely why it matters to us. This gaze by which we break down things through the “nominal though of the visible” is not necessarily how we make sense of the world anymore, yet much of botany still is a part of the discursive space of natural history. And resolving truth from various different discourses is something botanists deal with quite often as a profession. Just think how ecologists and molecular biologists have different ways of understanding evolution. And as we traverse different narratives we fulfill a different role as botanists, that of historians. If we think of two types of history, that of restoring to language “all the words that have been buried” which leaves us with documents of words and that of “undertaking a meticulous examination of things themselves for the first time,” where the documents are spaces where things are juxtaposed, e.g. herbaria, collections, gardens; we see that we do both. The former evinced by the practice of the principle of priority and the latter by the microscope: it is both thinking about old names in the (re)naming of new things as well as the finding of new things to name. So our job is both that of preserving names and the creation of new names and stories.
Now that I have described a historical example of changes in a discourse by way of Linnaeus, I now want to explore the means by which discourses shape the dominant narratives.
Let us look at the easiest example, which of course has the most complexity, that of the naming of man. What’s really in a name? Our name when placed with other hominoids certainly tells a story: ergaster workman, habilis skilled, erectus noble proud alert, antecessor vanguard scout, sapiens discerning wise. The names are engendered by ideas of the scala naturae; of man having a place among the beasts, but separate; of the concept of the Type; man not woman; and it tells us who we are… “wise”. And in thinking about Linnaeus’ contribution of nominating the visible, the name itself is infused with these stories as a way to replace the lost whole. Instead of thinking about the rose as a rose as a rose as a rose, we have by way of the rose a great many stories that reflect the ones who named it.
Similarly, the process of naming creates narratives. What do we mean when we say “86% of existing species on Earth and 91% of species in the ocean still await description”? The value of biodiversity in-and-of-itself when divorced from other issues such as how it will affect communities that interact with these threatened ecosystems, are of the same conceit as Linnaeus who considered himself a “second Adam.” These narratives are of course easy criticism for theorists like Said who thought of environmentalism as a “bourgeois playground,” and yet has been until late used as successful narratives to promote science to the public, receive grants, and preserve the prestige of being “apolitical.”
This brings me to the final part of my talk which is that of this current narrative crisis in science.
The shift in the Twentieth century of American sensibility towards the de-politicization of science has created a discourse without overtly political narratives, and is embodied by the belief that science “speaks for itself.” Yet, although this has secured a great deal of science funding through both Democratic and Republican administrations, we now are starting to see that our lobbies are not strong in promoting scientifically supported policy. To quote the New Yorker, “To the new E.P.A. chief (Scott Pruitt), concern for climate change or just a basic belief in science, is yet another crazed form of political correctness.”
This should not be so surprising as science is in fact is political and has always been. However, our practices may seem apolitical when they are ingrained in the dominant politics, which science had been. If the state is funding climate change research, it is reasonable to think that the research is reasonable and valid. But what happens when the state reneges its funding and is saying, “no actually, climate change research is all bunk.” Where does the field draw its authority to teach? Science as a field under attack is now finding itself as a field that lacks the voice it never knew it needed. Some example of this problem to name a few is the Badlands National Park being silenced by the new administration, the potential repealing of the endangered species act, and the fact that there are students, teachers, and researchers who are at Berkeley affected by the Muslim ban.
So having science play a role in policy is important. Here’s one example:
• Trump federal budget 2018 (Washington Post):
• NIH cut by $5.8 billion, -20%
• Education department cut by -14%
• Energy department cuts $900 million from the Office of Science
• Interior department (national parks): cut by -11%
• NASA
• Cuts $102 million of funding from Earth science
• Terminates four missions aimed at understanding climate-change
• EPA cut by $2.5 billion, -30%
• Eliminates more than 50 programs and 3,200 jobs
• Discontinues funding for international climate-change programs
So is there a problem in have science is communicated? Yes. We see that science is losing a role in traditional power structures that gave scientists authority to teach and compelled people to learn. This was a knowledge authority validated by power structures vested by the State. A new role needs to be formed and a new mode of communication must be established.
You must be saying, we hear so much about science communication aren’t we already doing that? Of course we’re communicating science more now. And I agree, but it still is important to think of who is communicating with whom. We see in this graph that following a climate meeting scientists are not the ones tweeting the most and that the contents of the tweets are not necessarily about scientific facts. This is actually arguably good and an example of the democratization of science. We see here that the internet allows for there to be many modalities of science information.
However, what is troubling is that even though many people may be engaging with scientific ideas, the ways by which they are engaging are myopic, for scientists and non-scientists alike. This is perhaps due to the privatization of the public sphere in fora like Twitter. Even though it seems like a free and open space to share ideas with the public, third parties like Twitter and Cambridge Analytica, shown here, mediate the dialogue by using algorithms that are designed to connect like-groups to each other using big data analytics. This can prevent us as scientists from reaching a broader audience. If you are tweeting science, how do you know you are actually reaching anyone? Collin and I are actually working on a project to analyze the patterns within these interactions to see if scientific tweets even reach diverse audiences, so perhaps I will have some data at the next Botany Lunch.
To return to the crisis in narrative, I want to close my talk with a semi-optimistic tone. Could the divorcing of science with its historical power, lead to a new politics? What would a democratic science look like? Though our relationship with the state is in jeopardy, our relationship with the people is one we can start to develop, and there is real power in the people. In thinking about what we really learn from Linnaeus, we see how in structuring language with power, powerful narratives often come with the erasure of other people’s history (whether it be John Ray’s names or the names of the Native people of the Pacific Northwest). In thinking about the internet as a “new way of connecting things both to the eye and to discourse,” I want to think about what narrative pluralism would like in biology and if that can serve a similar role that erasure did as we try and reshape the power dynamics of discourse. This is especially pertinent to climate change science. If we can no longer rely on the state to give our data authority, the reality of climate change must find itself a new advocate. What better one than the peoples who will be most affected by climate change, and we must advocate for them too in our position as scientists.
And what would a decolonized science look like? First it must address issue of language like this. Here, is an example of an ethnobotanical dictionary. It is the Latin name and the English common name. Though it is about native uses of plants, there are no native names. This is a form of erasure inherent in our use of language, but one that can be changed.
I want to leave with two potential ways we can build a more successful scientific discourse. First, diversifying narratives in outreach and communication. We need to do a better job in tying scientific narratives into larger narratives that people care about, especially when it comes to climate change. For example, I went out to Sonoma recently wine-tasting with a friend whose step-dad is an oil tycoon. The way the growers talked to him about the vineyard and the relationship they have to their immigrant workers (unfair labor practices aside, they thought of the workers highly) and also how they talked to him about how the climate is changing, had this Republican deeply caring about climate change and made him change his mind on “the wall.” This to me was super exciting to see! The wine grower who is not a scientist was talking to another non scientist about scientific issues and their advocacy worked! These are people we should be learning from! So if anyone wants to go to Sonoma with me…
Second, we need to be opening up new public fora. There needs to be a commitment to building respect and trust in communities far more than the condescending tweet #actuallivingscientist. We shouldn’t be afraid of using the human narrative in biology. In fact, not including humans in ecology often can be problematic: a recent study found that “hundreds of years later, plants domesticated by ancient civilizations still dominate in the Amazon.” And though not everyone has the training to conduct scientific research, as Becker’s Everyperson is their own historian, so too is Everyone their own scientist. There is a great deal of untapped knowledge that scientists can benefit from listening to non-scientists. In an era best characterized by the recent conversation that our IB chair Robert Dudley had with the administration where our department was recommended to “find our own billionaires,” it is more important than ever that our discipline find a strong voice and connect with more people.
Just to give an example of what community engagement looks like here on campus, as well, look no farther than our own department. I hope to have shown the importance of thinking critically about narratives in science and how power dynamics are an important thing to think about when evaluating best practices in science communication. I leave with a pitch for the March for Science which is happening on Earth Day. There will be a UC march organized by our very own Rachel Thayer. So I hope you all will start thinking about structures of power in the language we use as scientists and thanks to my colleagues who helped with this talk and thanks for listening.