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The Art of Arguing Science: A Critique of Scientific Rhetoric through the Invasive Species Narrative

Item

Title (dcterms:title)

Eng The Art of Arguing Science: A Critique of Scientific Rhetoric through the Invasive Species Narrative

Date (dcterms:date)

2018

Creator (dcterms:creator)

Eng Follman, Clare

Subject (dcterms:subject)

Eng Environmental Studies

extracted text (extracttext:extracted_text)

Cover image by David Strother

THE ART OF ARGUING SCIENCE
A CRITIQUE OF SCIENTIFIC LANGUAGE AND RHETORIC
THROUGH THE INVASIVE SPECIES NARRATIVE

by
Clare Elizabeth Patrick Follmann

A Thesis
Submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree
Master of Environmental Studies
The Evergreen State College
June 2018

© 2018 by Clare Elizabeth Patrick Follmann. All rights reserved.

This Thesis for the Master of Environmental Studies Degree
by
Clare Elizabeth Patrick Follmann

has been approved for
The Evergreen State College
by

________________________
Miranda Mellis
Member of the Faculty

_______________________
Date

ABSTRACT
The Art of Arguing Science: A Critique of Scientific Language and Rhetoric Through the
Invasive Species Narrative
Clare Follmann
My thesis asks, what are the foundations, implications and effects of misleading
metaphors and inaccessible language in invasive species management nomenclature? I
performed close readings of a diverse range of historical and contemporary texts on
language and linguistic theory, science and scientific communication, and nomenclature
used in invasive species management. For my data collection, I focused on quantifying a
particular class of inaccessible “plastic” words in invasive species management. I wanted
to find out if they existed in invasive species management and to what extent, what
effects they have on a broad audience, and what invasive species management would
look or feel like without plastic words or militarized metaphor. Therefore, I analyzed a
selection of six key texts on invasive species to discover extant usage of ‘plastic’ words. I
sent a portion of one of the key texts to an intended diverse audience of 100+ individuals
accompanied with a survey designed to determine read-difficulty of the text portion. I
also conducted an interview with a ‘science translator’. After collecting this data, I
performed my own original translation of the portion of the text I sent to be surveyed.
The results of this data and research suggests that invasive species management relies
both on militaristic metaphor as well as inaccessible words to generate a narrative that is
misleading, persuasive, unclear, and difficult for most people to argue against. A
significant number of responses found use of terms difficult to pin down, because of their
malleability. Malleable and variable terms are the main source of confusion in science
communication. Plastic words, when used in invasive species management, have the
effect of colonizing the rest of the document in a noticeable way. Even when eliminated,
the feeling of the plastic words remained. In light of a changing climate that challenges
the narrative of invasive species as militarized enemy other invading the pristine, we are
called to question this narrative and seek an alternative story, one in which many voices
are able to be heard. This case study can serve as a metonym, a small piece of something
larger, for science as a whole. Science should be democratized, space should be made for
subverted voices, and narratives of widespread phenomena should, to the best of our
ability, be written by many people with many perspectives, experiences, ideas and
solutions. A democratic science with accessible communication would dismantle barriers
to changing bettering the world we live in.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction. .......................................................................................... 1
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................... 11
Language and Semiotics ............................................................................... 11
Our Scientific Language ............................................................................... 18
History of Scientific Language ..................................................................... 21
Scientific Language Today ........................................................................... 30
Metaphors ..................................................................................................... 38
Plastic Words ................................................................................................ 47
Invasive Species ............................................................................................ 55
CHAPTER 3: METHODS ........................................................................................... 83
Invasive Species Management Documents................................................... 84
Surveys .......................................................................................................... 91
Semi-structured Interview ............................................................................. 93
Original Translation ...................................................................................... 95
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS & ANALYSIS........................................................................ 96
Invasive Species Documents......................................................................... 96
Surveys ........................................................................................................ 106
Interview ..................................................................................................... 132
CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION...................................................................................... 134
Invasive Species Management Documents................................................. 134
Surveys ........................................................................................................ 134
Interview ..................................................................................................... 138
Translation .................................................................................................. 138
By All Means, “Call Out” That Word! ....................................................... 144
Concluding Remarks................................................................................... 148
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION .................................................................................... 151
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................... 159
APPENDICES ......................................................................................................... 167

v

List of Figures
Figure 1: A Digital Copy of Rene Magritte’s Painting: Treachery of Images................. 14
Figure 2 Soldiers Marching .............................................................................................. 40
Figure 3 Marching for Pesticides ...................................................................................... 40
Figure 4 Kill Capitalism Not Weeds Graffiti.................................................................... 43
Figure 6 I'm not a weed..................................................................................................... 61
Figure 6 Frequency of Plastic Words in Invasive Species Documents ............................ 97
Figure 7 Percentage of Plastic Words in Invasive Species Document ............................. 98
Figure 8 Percentage of Plastic Words in Federal Trade Commission Documents ........... 99
Figure 9: Word Cloud for E.O. 13112 ............................................................................ 100
Figure 10 Word Cloud for ERSS-SOP ........................................................................... 101
Figure 11 Word Cloud for Clarification Guidance White Paper Document .................. 102
Figure 12 Word Cloud for Management Plan Report Card ............................................ 103
Figure 13 Word Cloud for E.O. 13751 ........................................................................... 104
Figure 14 Word Cloud for Five-Year Review of E.O. 13112 ........................................ 105
Figure 15 Word Cloud for Preamble to Clarification Guidance Document ................... 109
Figure 16 Purposive Survey Correlation......................................................................... 112
Figure 17 Mechanical Turk Survey Correlation ............................................................. 113
Figure 18 Word Cloud for Purposive Survey Cohort Easiest Words ............................. 117
Figure 19 Word Cloud for Mechanical Turk Cohort Easiest Words .............................. 118
Figure 20 Word Cloud for Purposive Survey Cohort Hardest Words ............................ 119
Figure 21 Word Cloud for Mechanical Turk Cohort Hardest Words ............................. 120
Figure 22 Frequency of Plastic Words in Survey Responses ........................................ 129
Figure 23 Frequency of Plastic Words in Mechanical Turk and Purposive Survey ....... 130
Figure 24 Frequency of Plastic Words in Purposive Survey Cohort Responses by
Question .......................................................................................................................... 130
Figure 25 Frequency of Plastic Words in Mechanical Turk Survey Cohort Responses by
Question .......................................................................................................................... 131

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List of Tables
Table 1 List of some common terms in the English Literature on invasion ecology, and
their corresponding "stages" ............................................................................................. 62
Table 2 Plastic Words list ................................................................................................. 88
Table 3 Frequency of plastic words in the word clouds for the six documents displayed in
Figures 8-13 .................................................................................................................... 105
Table 4 Preamble's Section Percentages ......................................................................... 108
Table 5 Easiest Section Genre to understand by percentage in responses...................... 114
Table 6 Most difficult Section Genre to understand by percentage in responses ........... 115

vii

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank a lot of people and some non-people, because I have never written
an Acknowledgements section before and therefore I think I’m allowed to get away with
it being a little unorthodox. Thank you to my family: Dean, Dona, and Andrew for your
constant support, advice and cheerleading. Dad, thanks for being such a genius at
statistics. Mom, thanks for your impeccable formatting skills. Andrew, thanks for being a
good boy. Thank you to my dear friend Bennett for consistently working with me all
these years, and punctuating the exacerbating parts of my work with your clandestine
humor and irreverent commentary. I am excited to talk about things that don’t have
anything to do with language now. Thank you for your ever insight. Thank you Nick for
the illustrious prank calls. Thank you Max, for your circle of light. Thank you Jeb for
your alias. Thank you Browsers Bookshop and all my customers who I’m sure I bore
constantly with my rambling banter about this project. Thank you Chask’e, for beginning
at the end. Thank you David Strother for the groovy cover. Thank you Miranda for
ceaselessly working with me and giving me such consistently incredible feedback. You
were so thorough, so engaged, so guiding. Thank you Sara Huntington—you really didn’t
need to help me with this. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate your incredible edits so
much, you scrupulous son of a gun. But just sayin’, you had literally no obligation to me.
Thank you Evergreen State College for providing a climactic and eventful pair of years
for my graduate education. Best of luck to you. And an everlasting thank you to my
always cherished professors at Sarah Lawrence College, Michael Davis and William
“Bill” Schullenberger—without your encouragement I would never have had faith in my
thoughts and ideas. Without your insight I never would have become so passionate.
Without your teachings I never would have learned how to teach myself. Thank you:
mind, books, inspiration, passion, and home. And thank you to anyone I don’t know who
ends up reading this, I hope you enjoy it. If you find yourself at all wanting to talk with
me about this work, I would like nothing more than to talk with you any time after
August 2018 because I’d like to recuperate a bit first. You can reach me by email. It is
my name at gmail dot com.

viii

Chapter 1: Introduction.
Speech is a spell, and words, once ejected into the air, warp the weave of worlds.
–Ho Tzu Nyen
My thesis exposes under-examined norms of scientific discourse with a focus on
the nomenclature of invasive species management. To build my thesis, I analyzed the
language and rhetoric that is used to talk about invasive species management, closely
reading its metaphors as well as examining the frequency of use and effects of
inaccessible terminology, specifically ‘plastic words’. While I do not discount the
negative effects of invasive species, I seek to critically evaluate the ways in which
scientific and bureaucratic rhetoric promote narratives that can prevent holistic
approaches to, and broad public engagement with, a range of ecological topics. The
lexicon of invasive species management functions as a metonymic case study from which
I draw general conclusions about the pitfalls of forms of discourse that objectify, obscure,
oversimplify or instrumentalize complex topics. This thesis draws from a range of
discourses and texts and is interdisciplinary in its approach. By engaging with my topic in
an interdisciplinary manner, I am endeavoring to avoid the narrow viewpoint that can
result from remaining within silos of disciplinary work. Interdisciplinarity serves to
promote reflexivity and holistic appraisal.
I do not mean to suggest that invasive species are not harmful. I do not mean to
suggest they do not contribute to biodiversity loss and other environmental damages. I
mean to explore how the prevalent story of invasive species is being told, and the ways in
which relying on misleading persuasive rhetoric of militaristic metaphors and the
surreptitiously inaccessible language of plastic words can be a disservice to all, and can
1

actually undermine efforts to teach about and protect against the harm caused by invasive
species. Any way of thinking that is discordant to conventional opinion has little traction
in the invasive species story that is currently being told. My thesis explores why.
Metaphors and Plastic Words
Metaphors are rhetorical devices that simplify complex issues by comparing those
issues to more familiar topics. To use a metaphor to describe a metaphor: metaphors are
linguistic alchemy. They have the effect of rhetorically turning one thing into something
else. If used thoughtlessly, metaphors can organize and structure thought and discourse in
unintended and unconscious ways. Metaphors, as referenced in the Oxford English
Dictionary (OED) are defined as 1) “A figure of speech in which a name or descriptive
word or phrase is transferred to an object or action different from, but analogous to, that
to which it is literally applicable; an instance of this, a metaphorical expression”, and 2)
“Something regarded as representative or suggestive of something else, esp. as a material
emblem of an abstract quality, condition, notion, etc.; a symbol, a token. Frequently with
for, of” (“metaphor, n”, 2018). The etymology of the word originates from the Greek
metepherein meaning to transfer where meta means over or across, and pherein means to
carry or bear (“metaphor, n”, 2018).
Plastic words do not have an entry in the OED. German linguist and philosopher
Uwe Poersken coined this term in his book Plastic Words: The Tyranny of Modular
Language (2004) to describe a list of 30 or so words that share a remarkable set of
characteristics (See Appendix 1). There is also no recipe-like definition for plastic words
that can be found in his text, but we can find in his introduction a loose exploration of
2

their concept. Poersken describes them as having, “been fashioned for the purpose of
laying down the tracks and outlining the routes of a civilization that is covering the globe
with gathering speed. Their origins can no longer be discerned. They resemble one
another” (Poersken, 2004, p. 1). He explains that “they may not be noticed, but they are
present everywhere”, and that “they invade private conversation. When they first appear,
they are fashionable and command attention; but they merge with the everyday and soon
seem commonsense” (Poersken, 2004, p. 1). This is how they show up and how they dig
their heels into our tongues, and comfortably settle in. Their effects are contingent on
their pervasiveness, combined with the malleability, or plasticity, of their meaning.
Plastic words originated in the vernacular, were adopted by science, and then snuck their
way back into the vernacular. By vernacular, I mean the common, colloquial language
used by people in everyday conversation. As they circulate and migrate, the meanings of
these plastic words change: they have the mutability of plastic. They are flexible enough
to be used in a variety of different disciplines, or can refer to a wide range of different
concepts. They can mean many things (or nothing) at once, and whoever uses them gets
to choose what they mean. They can mean their very inverse when used in a different
context. Because they are overarching, they render different, more specific words
obsolete. They are difficult to argue against because they are so familiar. Most people
have a general idea of their meaning, but it is hard to know exactly what is being said
when they are used. They are able to render opposing points of view ineffective or
obsolete because they cast such a broad stroke, eliminate specificity in synonyms, and
feel official. Poersken, in describing the plastic word “sexuality” explains the
characteristic of plastic words that I am chiefly concerned with: “The word signals
3

science. It silences” (Poersken, 2004, p. 15). For these reasons of variability, ahistory and
their silencing effects, I refer to them as inaccessible.
What is at stake when indeterminable words such as these are used? Using these
words thoughtlessly degrades our ability to be reflexive or self-reflective, and works
against accountability and responsibility. This is because they feel inarguable. When used
by institutions that hold power over our daily lives, they can be tyrannical. These words
are used assertively, do not lend themselves to inquiry, and do not make room for
improvement or alternate ideas. They slip under the radar. The familiarity they have on
our tongue and in our minds makes it hard to notice them. These words, when used in
various narratives make it very difficult to open up conversation or to offer alternative
narratives. Plastic words, and their evocative meanings are modern and historically
unprecedented.
When plastic words are used in conjunction with persuasive metaphors to tell a
science story, the effect can be such that an audience is made to believe in an
oversimplification without being given any space or opportunity to interject or dialogue
meaningfully.
Invasive Species Management
The term invasive species management contains both a metaphor and a plastic
word.
The metaphor lies within the word invasive and conjures militaristic ideas of an
invading other, an enemy, or war. Biologist Charles Elton coined the term invasive in his
book The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants (1958) to refer to specific non4

native species that harm the native regions into which they migrate. Elton wrote this in a
post-war era United States, and the text is filled with militant metaphoric terminology to
refer to this type of species.
The plastic word is management, and shows up in Poersken’s list of 30 plastic
words. Management is a marriage of the prefix manage and the suffix ment. Manage
comes from the Italian maneggiare, from mano which meant hand, and which comes
from the Latin manus. Maneggiare, when used in the mid-16th century, originally meant
to handle, specifically, to handle or train a horse. Related is the Spanish manejar,
meaning to use or manipulate. Early use of the word management implied manipulation
or trickery (“manage, v”, 2018). When used in the context of invasive species
management, most often it means something like control or diminish or eradicate.
However, several usages are not so clear. Here, I refer to several documents I use in my
data collection and analysis (See Appendix 3-8). For example, in the Five-Year Review of
Executive Order 13112 on Invasive Species (2005), there are references to “Control and
Management” which seems redundant because control and management here seem
synonymous (NISC, 2005, p. 8). This is right above “Information
Management/Research” (NISC, 2005, p. 8) and later “information management sharing
and accessibility” (NISC, 2005, p. 16) where the term management is difficult to
determine in context, but likely refers to a controlled release of information. In The
Standard Operating Procedures for the Rapid Screening of Species’ Risk of
Establishment and Impact in the United States (2016) there are instances of “data
management” (U.S Fish and Wildlife, 2016 pp. 13, 23), where the exact meaning of
manage is harder to discern. In the Executive Order 13751 (2016), there’s instances of
5

“Office of Management and Budget” (“E.O. 13751”, 2016) but again I cannot discern the
exact distinct meaning here, because budget should suffice and also seems synonymous
with management. In Executive Order 13751 Safeguarding the Nation from the Impacts
of Invasive Species (2016), a Management Plan of 2016 is revealed, but this plan
encompasses many different ideas, including:
(1) provide institutional leadership and priority setting; (2) achieve effective
interagency coordination and cost-efficiency; (3) raise awareness and motivate
action, including through the promotion of appropriate transparency, communitylevel consultation, and stakeholder outreach concerning the benefits and risks to
human, animal, or plant health when controlling or eradicating an invasive
species; (4) remove institutional and policy barriers; (5) assess and strengthen
capacities; and (6) foster scientific, technical, and programmatic innovation
(“E.O. 13751”, 2016).
While some ideas of what management refers to in this context can be discerned through
the haze (ie: control of, minimization of, eradication of, education of, etc), when we reach
to grasp for a concrete meaning, it is as if the word jumps away to signify something else
altogether. It serves as a placeholder for whatever the management will be at any
moment. We see also in these soundbites a handful of other plastic words (plan,
information, health, etc) with obscure intonations that contribute to a generally vague
intention for invasive species management. Further, one need only look into another subdiscipline of science to be made clearly aware that management (as like any other plastic
word) is a master of disguise, with multiple diverse personalities. In the realm of
economics, for example, manage rarely refers to eradication or minimization. We can see
different implications for the word management in the Federal Trade Commission Draft
Strategic Plan (2017):

6

Major Management Priorities and Objectives The FTC’s management
objectives are incorporated into Strategic Goal 3, Advance the FTC’s
performance through excellence in managing resources, human capital,
and information technology. This Strategic Plan addresses priorities in
areas of human capital management, information technology management
and planning, financial and acquisition management, staff emergency
preparedness, records management and ethics.

Here, the meaning of manage or management generally refers to stimulation,
advancement and encouraged growth, rather than minimization or eradication which is
largely the preferred meaning for management in the invasive species context. In this
comparison, these meanings of management contradict each other, deflating each
antonymic meaning.
The discourse of invasive species management as a whole relies on plastic words
and metaphors. By means of militaristic metaphors and inaccessible plastic words,
invasive species management can at once mask and promote its goals, creating an
inherently biased and actually contingent perspective against those species deemed
invasive—a perspective that is made to seem unquestionable, eternal and universal.
To gather data for this thesis, I researched the frequency of plastic words used in
invasive species management by coding a selection of federal documents designed to
explain invasive species and invasive species management to the public in order to
determine if, and to what extent, plastic words existed in invasive species management. I
analyzed the results of a survey I created in order to explore how easily a diverse range of
people could read and understand a small section of a key text on invasive species, to see
how plastic words may or may not effect comprehension of the document. I interviewed a
“science translator” whose job was to translate technical scientific data and results into
7

text that aspired to be accessible to the general public, and taking what I learned from this
interview, I rewrote the portion of the seminal invasive species document which my
survey participants evaluated. In my translation I eliminated plastic words, metaphors,
and abstraction to the best of my ability to find out how invasive species management
would feel and sound without problematic language and rhetoric.
I have found that the use of plastic words in this specific sub-discipline of science
is under examined: plastic words have never been quantified in invasive species
management, nor, for that matter, in nearly any sub-discipline of science. My work draws
on existing analyses of military metaphors and pushes it further by comparing metaphor
and plastic words and examining how both these modalities of language combine to
promote a single way of thinking about an ecologically important phenomenon which, I
argue, should be understood and addressed holistically, accessibly, and democratically.
Much like how statistical analysis of a small portion allows for generalizations to
be made about a population, my work is similarly metonymic in nature. It is to provide an
in-depth analysis of a small piece that speaks for and represents something much larger.
It’s a case study for science as an institution of power that influences how people think—
about ourselves, each other, and the world around us. In short, my work notes that
language should be used accessibly, thoughtfully, and very carefully, especially in
institutions of power. My work argues that science should be aware of its power and be
made humbler to allow space for alternative tastes, solutions and ideas.
The planet is undergoing a dramatic shift under the wake of anthropogenic
climate change. Many of our preconceived paradigms are being thrown into question as
8

climate change alters our world. This ecological world shift offers us a unique
opportunity to change sedentary worldviews, and asses these and similarly prominent
narratives in favor of more holistic and thoughtful paradigms, in which many, and not
few, may have a voice that is heard and taken into consideration. Climate change offers
us a chance to build a more democratic science.
Layout of Thesis
In Chapter two, the literature review, I examine the historical roots of scientific
language and, specifically, how scientific discoveries and nomenclature often reflect and
express societal beliefs and norms of their era. I discuss language theory and semiotics,
history and philosophy of science communication, and explore the implications of
metaphor and plastic words in scientific discourse with supporting literature on uses of
militaristic metaphors in invasive species management.
In Chapter three, the methods section, I describe my methods, including how I
chose and coded key documents for the recursion and frequency of key terms. Under
methods, I also include my informal interview with a science translator.
In Chapter four, the results and analysis section, I present a quantitative,
qualitative and humanist analysis of my surveys, coding, and interview. This chapter
begins exploring patterns.
In Chapter five, the discussion, I unpack these patterns, interpreting their
implications. This section includes my own translation of a key invasive species
document. I also discuss practical ways to avoid abstract language, and offer suggestions
for future work.
9

In my conclusion, Chapter six, I explore and challenge the undemocratic effects
of the preferred English language of science.

10

Chapter 2: Literature Review
Words are not bound directly to other pictorial elements. They are merely
inscriptions on blobs and shapes.
– Michel Foucault
Language and Semiotics
Before diving into this thesis, I think it is important to layout the seminal literary
framework of semiotics. The linguistic structures of semiotics are indirectly referenced
throughout this thesis, and in a sense, form the basis of my linguistic critique.

Semiotics comes from the concept of semiosis, which, at the core, describes the
relationship between sign, the signifier, and the signified. The Oxford English Dictionary
(OED) defines semiotics as “The science of communication studied through the
interpretation of signs and symbols as they operate in various fields, esp. language”
(“semiotics, n”, 2018). There are two key figures in the semiotic theory—Ferdinand de
Saussure (1857-1913) and Charles Peirce (1839-1914). Saussure’s work is foundational
for semiotics linguistics, and Peirce elaborated on Saussure’s ideas. According to
Saussure, the signifier is an indicator which is understood to represent or suggest the
signified. The sign is the name given to this relationship of signifier which is signifying
the signified. For example, the word “pipe”, or a photograph, painting or drawing of a
pipe represents or suggests the concept of what a pipe is. The word, and the artful
rendering (photo, painting, drawing) are the signifier and the concept of a pipe is the
signified, while the sign is the relationship between the word or artful rendering and the
concept. Another form of signifier for a pipe could be that syrupy pungent smell unique
to pipe tobacco smoke. Each of these signifiers do not refer to any specific pipe, but
11

rather the general idea of what a pipe is. Pierce elaborated on these distinctive
signifiers—noticing that while they may signify the same thing, they have each a
distinctive nature. He argues that there are three types of signifiers: icon, index, or
symbol. An icon will be a similar rendering of the signified, for example: that painting,
photograph or drawing of our pipe. An index will be something that is concurrent to or
caused by the signified, for example: the smell of pipe tobacco and smoke. A symbol is
only able to work as a signifier because of widespread agreement or convention that it
will signify the signified (Sebeok, 2001). For example, the word, “pipe”, which has no
relationship to what a pipe is inherently, is recognizable (at least by those who can read
English) as signifying an actual pipe. Both icon and symbol are arbitrary, meaning they
do not have a tangible connection to the signified. Rather, we can recognize the icon and
the symbol as a signifier because our culture connects these forms of signifiers to the
signified. For example, a cat may look at a painting or photograph of a pipe, but will
probably not make any discernable connection between the painting or photograph and
the actual pipe. However, a cat might smell pipe tobacco and know then that there is the
source of the smell, the pipe, somewhere. An index is not arbitrary.

Semiotician Roland Barthes argues that words have three dimensions: “a cultural
reference, a rhetorical model, a deliberately ambiguous utterance and a simple indicative
unit” (Newton, 1997, p. 95). In short, words are not that which they represent. They are
the signifier “symbol”, signifying the signified. They are “rose”, suggesting this fragrant,
pretty, spiral, many-petaled, dew-touched, sharp-stemmed historically and culturally
charged romantic flower. Semiotics tells us that a language is a system of meaning. There
12

is no objective meaning, only nuanced and layered meaning within the many-layered
context of language which is particular to that language’s culture.

13

Figure 1: A Digital Copy of Rene Magritte’s Painting: Treachery of Images

14

To elaborate more intently on semiotics, we can refer to the Rene Magritte’s
painting This is Not a Pipe, which is depicted above, as well as an essay of the same
name by philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984). In James Harkness’ introduction to
his translation of Foucault’s This is Not a Pipe (1982), Harkness explains pivotal points
of semiotics, referencing often the significance of Rene Magritte’s surreal painting.
Harkness writes:

In Saussurean linguistics, words do not ‘refer’ to things themselves. Rather, they
have meaning as points within the entire system that is a language-a system,
further, conceived as a network of graded differences. ‘Dog’ is not somehow
attached to the real animal, arising naturally from it and participating magically in
its essence or presence. Instead, ‘dog’ has conceptual signification insofar as it
evokes an idea that differs from the idea of a cat, a bear, a· fur seal, etc. It has
syntactical signification insofar as it (a noun) differs from words such as ‘bark’
(verb) or ‘furry’ (adjective) and thus cannot take their places in a proposition; and
it has phonetic signification insofar as it differs from more or less similar
sounding signifiers such as ‘bog,’ ‘dot,’ ‘dig,’ and so on. From the commonsense
vantage this seems an unnecessarily complex and circumlocutory approach to
language, aimed at the most radical divorce possible between words and things.
And why bother? After all, would anyone seriously argue that a word is what it
represents-that the painting of a pipe is the pipe itself? …Yet it is exactly from the
commonsense vantage that, when asked to identify the painting, we reply ‘It’s a
pipe’-words we shall choke on the moment we try to light up (Foucault, 1982, p.
5).
Harkness here elaborates on how arbitrary icons and symbols are. Words and language
are symbols, and only are able to operate successfully within a complex system of
meaning, history, shared understanding—culture. Because words work within language,
and language works within culture, words carry the weight of culture, society, story and
history. Yet it is so often difficult to remember that these symbols and icons are arbitrary,
and we choke on our words, Harkness suggests, as we try to light up this painting of the
pipe, calling it “pipe” when it is really just a painting. Harkness reminds us not to forget
15

there is no tangible connection between icons and symbols and what they signify. As we
remember this, we are made to recognize how incredibly powerful words and language
are to convince us that this arbitrary phantom connection is real.

The theory of semiotics is visible in both the concept of metaphor and of plastic
words. In Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay (1986) poet Anne Carson describes how
semiotics shapes the way we think about metaphor:

There is in the mind a change or shift of distance, which Aristotle calls an
epiphora (Poet. 21.1457b7), bringing two heterogeneous things close to reveal
their kinship. The innovation of metaphor occurs in this shift of distance from far
to near, and it is effected by imagination. A virtuoso act of imagination brings the
two things together, sees their incongruence, then sees also a new congruence,
meanwhile continuing to recognize the previous incongruence through the new
congruence. Both the ordinary, literal sense and a novel sense are present at once
in the words of a metaphor; both the ordinary, descriptive reference and a novel
reference are held in tension by the metaphor’s way of looking at the world
(Carson 1986, p. 73)
Metaphors construct new semantic relationships between disparate things.
Epiphora bridges differences. Similarly, semiotics tells us we are uniting a thing—be it
that which we sit upon, often accompanied by a flat object of similar height (chair, table),
that which we feel when we are near someone we care so very much for (love), that
which we pick, hold in our hands, smell, give to someone we care so very much for, stop
to smell to take a moment out of our busy days, that into which the bees fly (rose)—
something, to a word made of letters made up of spaces, lines, dashes and dots that we
decide will be that something’s name.

16

Uwe Poersken explains the ways in which plastic words signify and the ways in
which they mean. He writes:

So, do ‘development’ and ‘sexuality’ mean the same thing? It seems to me that
they signify different things, but what they signify is less important than what
they mean. And the meaning is the same. These are close relatives of the myths of
everyday life by Roland Barthes. They are idols, magical and empty (Poersken,
2004, p. 23).
Here, we grapple with the concept of different words signifying different things,
and actually meaning the same thing. What these plastic words mean, however, is
everything and nothing at the same time. What they mean is science. They mean
authority. They mean believe this. While plastic words refer to various things, they share
in common a kind of meaning that is evacuated. Rather than create new meanings, adding
to our understanding, as metaphors do, plastic words seem to diminish our understanding
and perception, functioning mechanically and invisibly, failing to call our attention to
meaning-making at all, as if stand-ins or placeholders.

Barthes addresses this function of certain words at the end of his essay “Science
versus Literature” (1997). He writes: “On the one hand and first there is the content of
the scientific message, which is everything, on the other hand and next, the verbal form
responsible for expressing that content, which is nothing…” (Barthes, 1997, p. 95).
Because they carry the sound of science and authority, plastic words have unique power.
Because the meaning changes as it is handed over from mouth to mouth of the powerful,
these words mean nothing. Because they mean nothing, they can mean everything and
they can mean anything.

17

We can sense the reality of semiotics when thinking of translations. You can say
rose in one language and it will never carry over absolutely the nuanced many-layered
Juliet-Romeo start-crossed cultural meanings into another. Plastic words, however, carry
over almost seamlessly from language to language, with nearly infinite references inside
the system of meaning. On the first page of Poersken’s introduction to his essay,
Poersken describes a conference, in which “discussion was dominated by a number of
words that floated through it like driftwood: ‘progreso,’ ‘proceso,’ ‘modernizacion’,
‘necesidades,’ ‘comunicacion,’ ‘informacion,’ ‘crisis,’ ‘desarollo.’” (Poersken 2004, p.
1). Though masked by another tongue, these words stay the same as they shift from
language to language. After all, Poersken’s text itself is translated from German. Plastic
words therefore offer a unique challenge to the concept of semiotics. They have a vague
evocative meaning which is different from the types of words which are set to function
within a system of meaning, of language and its culture. They are symbols which can
signify anything.
Our Scientific Language
Knowledge is, by its nature, always incomplete. ‘A scientist is never certain,’ the
scientists Richard Feynman reminds us. And neither, the poet John Keats would
argue, is a poet.
– Eula Biss
Science is engaged with a pursuit of truth. This is fundamentally different than
saying science can tell you the truth. Scientific discoveries are better understood as
constructs rather than theories, and bear the imprint of culture in which they were made.
Science itself is a culture, one among many. If we are to accept the OED definition of
culture which suggests that culture is “The cultivation or development of the mind,
18

faculties, manners, etc.; improvement by education and training” or “The devoting of
attention to or the study of a subject or pursuit”, or even “The distinctive ideas, customs,
social behaviour, products, or way of life of a particular nation, society, people, or
period” and “The philosophy, practices, and attitudes of an institution, business, or other
organization”, (“culture, n”, 2018) we can see how the practice and study of the sciences
fits neatly within these definitions. Cultures shift, change and morph. They are not
comprehensive nor universal. Often scientific findings, and the policies based upon these
findings are taken literally enough to reflect honestly natural law. Sometimes this is
relatively harmless and aids in our continually adapted understanding of our universe.
Yet historically, scientific findings and policies based upon them have been used to
perpetuate sexism, racism and oppression which reflects less a natural law and more the
cultural biases of the time period. A charged example of this is how the biased study of
human skull shapes, called phrenology, was used to assert that Caucasian males were the
intellectually superior race and gender of humankind. An effect of the study of
phrenology was the belief that non-white people were biologically incapable of adapting
to modern industrial societies. These findings conveniently coincided with Andrew
Jackson’s policy of Indian Removal in 1830, in which the Caucasian settlers of the
Americas were legally permitted to relocate the local native peoples from their homes
(“Skulls in print”, 2018). Scientific understanding of gender too has often mirrored sexist
beliefs of the time. Feminist and scientist Donna Haraway remarks how, “Women know
very well that knowledge from the natural science has been used in the interests of our
domination and not our liberation” (Haraway, 1991, p. 8). She describes how the
Committee for Research on Problems of Sex examined differences between the genders
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in mental or emotional cognition, happiness in marriage, and other sex-based
investigations from 1922 through post World War II (Haraway, 1991). In Charles
Darwin’s (1809-1882) Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1889) the idea
that women are evolutionarily inferior to men is seminal to his text. He argues that “man
has ultimately become superior to woman” (Darwin, 1889, p. 362), not just in physicality
and strength, but “Man is more courageous, pugnacious, and energetic than woman, and
has a more inventive genius” (Darwin, 1889, p. 356). Sexist and misogynist language has
been historically used to describe the pursuit of knowledge through science. In her article
“The Scientific Revolution and The Death of Nature”, environmentalist and feminist
Carolyn Merchant describes how 17th century scientist Francis Bacon (1561-1626), often
referred to as the father of empiricism, used this sort of sexually violent language to
describe scientific endeavors. Bacon would spoke of Nature as a woman keeping secrets
“laid up in the womb” or hidden in her bosom which “a man [ought not] make scruple of
entering and penetrating into these holes and corners, when the inquisition of truth is his
whole object” and would encourage his followers to grab nature by the hair and enslave
her (Merchant, p. 521). Bacon metaphorically compares this way of gaining knowledge
from Nature to the way in which women suspected of witchcraft were subjected to torture
in order to generate a confession. Merchant elaborates and contextualizes Bacon’s
metaphor and alludes to interrogation and torture of witches as an early tool of the
scientific pursuit of knowledge. She writes that James I of England (1566-1626)
“believed that witches had powers over people and nature, knew secrets, and could be
forced to confess those secrets if interrogated under torture or shown the instruments of
torture” (Merchant, 2006, p. 519). The wisdom of women folk healers, midwives and
20

nurses or “witches” of the 16th century often posed a threat to practicing male physicians
in the field of medicine. Historian Clifford D. Conner in his book A People’s History of
Science (2005) notes Bacon remarking that “witches and old women and imposters have
had a competition with physicians” (Conners, 2005, p. 369). It is not, then, surprising that
the patriarchy of science sought eradication and extrapolation of women’s wisdom. As
Vandana Shiva, environmental activist writes “Western culture’s favourite beliefs mirror
in sometimes clear and sometimes distorting ways not the world as it is or as we might
want it to be, but the social projects of their historically identifiable creators” (Shiva,
2003, p. 10). In short, there is plenty of evidence to show how scientific knowledge
reinforces misleading and harmful ideas of racism, sexism and violence.
Another example of a misleading scientific narrative is in the literature of invasive
species management. The idea that certain species are invasive emerged in the United
States in a post-war period, and is historically charged with a war language that still
lingers today. Scientific constructs are often misleading (as in the case of species waging
war) or literally incorrect (as in the case of phrenology). Because the words and beliefs of
scientists and/or popular science journalists carry influential power over the public,
policies acting in response to these theories can have detrimental effects. My focus is on
these effects of misleading, inaccessible language used by scientists, which invariably
strengthen the power of science to convince people of its stories. In order to understand
where this misleading and inaccessible language comes from, we will look briefly at the
beginnings of institutionalized science.
History of Scientific Language
A Language for the Secret Elite
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The 17th century enlightenment occurred thanks in part to the burgeoning of
certain scientific societies: the Royal Society in England (Gilbert & Stocklmayer, 2012),
Rome’s Academia dei Lincei, Germany’s Academia Naturae Curiorsorum, and France’s
Academie des Sciences (Daston, 2009). In these early days, scientists met with one
another in person to discuss their findings. As science grew as a discipline, scientists
would write their findings in published papers. At first, these papers read like modern day
tabloids—chronicling miracles like a sky with three suns, or rains of blood (Daston,
2009). Within 200 years of the Royal Society’s establishment, scientists created a
technical, specialized language to report their findings. These papers were difficult to
read or understand for people who were not scientists. There was an aura of mystery
around science: scientists were viewed as elite, their discoveries secret and inaccessible.
As a literary example, Francis Bacon’s (1561-1626) fictional story, New Atlantis (1697)
contains evidence of this idea that science should be reserved for a select group and its
findings kept secret. In New Atlantis, Bacon describes a utopian island of vast
technological achievements called Bensalem. In Bensalem, the Salomon’s House is the
name of the secretive school in which a select elite learn to hone their control and
mimicry of nature (See Appendix 2). To the public, the purpose of Salomon’s House: “is
the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of
human empire, to the effecting of all things possible” (Bacon, 1697, p. 71), but their
findings and abilities are kept well-guarded and secret, known only to a few. There is a
note to the reader in New Atlantis in which Bacon’s secretary writes that Bacon wanted
the secretive elitist Salomon’s House to be a practical model for existing and future
schools designed to deepen scientific knowledge in the late 17th century. We can refer
22

back to the pseudo-science of phrenology for a nonfictional example of how elitism, in
this case compounded by racist ideology, was constitutive to the development of science.
The key phrenological text Crania Americana, written by Samuel George Morton, which
asserts that Caucasians were an intellectually superior race, was expensive. Copies were
only available to the richest institutions. This text, which rationalized racialized
hierarchies, was widely read among the educated elite, but the majority of people were
exposed only to the racist and violent effects of this ideology (“Skulls in print”, 2018).
There were those who argued against this inaccessibility, and fought for scientific
knowledge and information to be disseminated democratically. During the scientific
revolution of the mid-17th century, various groups opposed monopolized scientific
knowledge that was reserved and censored in academic spheres—like Royal College of
Physicians, which strategically withheld medical information—in favor of “ending the
distinction between specialists and laymen” and forming a “new, democratic system” (as
cited in Conners, 2005, p. 358, 359). During this revolutionary time, Gerard Winstanley
(ca. 1609-after 1660), leader of a group called the Diggers “wanted science, philosophy
and politics to be taught in every parish by an elected non-specialist” and that
“knowledge and education should not be monopolized by scholars in elite universities”
(as cited in Conners, 2005, p. 359), but after the revolution, the sort of language used to
describe science remained technical and dissemination of knowledge and information
remained undemocratic and a conservative elite Baconian science prospered (Gilbert &
Stocklmayer, 2012). While technicality of this sort of language may be inevitable, an
undemocratic censored or inaccessible mode of information release is not.
A Dead Language
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Latin was the original language of science. Botanist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) is
widely known for carving up the world he observed around him using Binomial
Nomenclature, which gave animals and plants specific Latin names. Scientists also
published in Latin. At a glance, this use of Latin appears to be a way to write about
science objectively. Latin was a dead language. There was no one and no culture alive to
claim Latin. The use of Latin too could be seen as a way of making science more
democratic. Because Latin belonged to no one, it could theoretically belong to everyone
equally. However, this only makes sense if Latin were understood equally by everyone,
yet Latin was only taught in colleges and schools, meaning that the uneducated masses
would not be able to understand it. There is historical evidence that Latin was
intentionally used to elevate its subjects. For example, Giambattista Dealla Porta, who
created one of the earlier and more experimental institutions of science in the 1560s,
“wrote in Latin, and not for the people” (as cited in Conners, 2005, p. 353). For others,
Latin “was the esoteric language used to prevent the dissemination of learning to people
who were deemed unworthy of it, or who might make a bad use of it” (as cited in
Conners, 2005, p. 306). Among many of the scientific elite, there was distrust of
uneducated people, and a desire to keep them from being able to know science. Francis
Bacon may have insisted that the study of science was to better mankind, yet his agenda
would also appear to have included using science to reinforce the dominance and power
of elites. He is quoted as saying “I do not like the word People” who he regarded as “the
commonality” or “the meaner sort” (Conners, 2005, p. 362). This notion is reflected in
Bensalem’s societal power dynamics in New Atlantis. Bacon, among other scientific
revolutionaries of this time, wrote in both Latin and the vernacular, which appears like a
24

step towards a more democratic science. However, the publications they wrote in were
designed for the educated and an urban middle class which together would form a
powerful dominant elite as the early days of capitalism favored and rewarded these
classes of people with wealth and power over an uneducated working class (Conners,
2005).
Distrust of Language
Scientists wanted to relay revelations of nature in a precise, unbiased way. This
resulted in a general distrust of language itself by scientists. In their essay, “The Image of
Objectivity” (1992), science historians Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison quote a late
19th century physiologist describing how and why language does not mix well with
science: “Born before science, language is often inappropriate to express exact measures
or definite relations” (Daston & Galison, 1992, p. 81). In his essay “Science Versus
Literature”, Roland Barthes explains:
As far as science is concerned, language is simply an instrument, which it profits
it to make as transparent and neutral as possible; it is subordinate to the matter of
science (workings, hypotheses, results) which, so it is said, exists outside
language and precedes it. On the one hand and first there is the content of the
scientific message, which is everything, on the other hand and next, the verbal
form responsible for expressing that content, which is nothing (Barthes, 1997, p.
94).
An indeterminate and often misunderstood phenomena, language cannot
pronounce the exactness that an appropriate revelation of nature seems to require.
Language can be loaded and laden with many meanings and thus open to interpretation.
In order to transcend language, scientists cultivated objectivity, which was structured by
the scientific method, graphs and charts, and by what was considered proof or evidence.
25

This objectivity relied heavily on the new technology of photography to render nature
precisely, without the messy middleman of language. In this way, it was thought, nature
might be better able to speak for itself. Objectivity in science was considered honest, but
also relied upon and entailed morality: Daston and Galison explain that it was considered
a scientist’s moral duty to do their utmost to identify and set aside their bias,
expectations, and emotions in favor of a more mechanical way of representing nature.
Language betrayed humanity, and so scientists trusted photography and related
technologies, not to tell but show nature’s truth (Daston & Galison, 1992). The
assumption, now disproven, was that subjectivity does not and should not affect scientific
findings and agendas.
Latin American fantastic fiction writer, Jorge Luis Borges, writes satirically about
this desire for precision and accuracy in scientific study in his short story, On Exactitude
in Science:
…In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of
a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the
entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied,
and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of
the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following
Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears
had been, saw that the vast Map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness
was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the
Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by
Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of
Geography (Borges, 2002, p. 12).
Borges describes here what happens when the map literally becomes the territory, when it
is used to represent that which it describes on a one-to-one scale. This playful thought
experiment satirizes the impracticability—and nonsense—of an exact correspondence
26

between signified and signifier. There is always slippage. Here is a modern equivalent of
Borges’ cartographers in a description of what satellite images can and cannot relay:
Satellite pictures scanning the globe’s vegetative cover, computer graphs running
interacting curves through time, threshold levels held up as worldwide norms are
the language of global ecology. It constructs a reality that contains mountains of
data, but no people. The data do not explain why Tuaregs are driven to exhaust
their water-holes, or what makes Germans so obsessed with high speed on
freeways; they do not point out who owns the timber shipped from the Amazon or
which industry flourishes because of a polluted Mediterranean Sea; and they are
mute about the significance of forest trees for Indian tribals or what water means
in an Arab country. In short, they provide a knowledge that is faceless and
placeless, an abstraction that carries a considerable cost: it consigns the realities
of culture, power and virtue to oblivion. It offers data, but no context; it shows
diagrams, but no actors; it gives calculations, but no notions of morality; it seeks
stability, but disregards beauty (Sachs, 1999, p. 44).
Borges’ cartographers’ mapping technique provides an accurate representation of the
landscape on a scale of 1:1, but it’s only 2-dimensional, lacking in depth, erasing and
occluding facts that don’t fit with their measurements. In their attempt to be perfectly
objective, the cartographers fail to be empirical.
Not only is objectivity impossible, but the objective is always provisional; a
model that can show only partial perspective. In 19th century science, the attempt to be
objective results in the valorization of photography and detailed drawings. Of those who
employed these photographs and detailed depictions, Daston and Galison write they did
not “regard the aesthetic with suspicion, as being opposed to scientific accuracy” rather,
they “considered the beauty of depiction to be part and parcel of achieving that accuracy,
not a seduction to betray it” (Daston & Galison, 1992, p. 14). These techniques were
aesthetic, as much as the “flowers of language” (Daston a& Galison, 1992, p. 14) which
objectivists bemoan. What Daston and Galison show is that as well as being by degrees
27

more objective methods of representation, these techniques to describe nature are truly
stylistic preferences. We can sense an example of this when we consider science’s
preference of passive voice. As author JM Coetze explores in his essay “Newton and the
Ideal of a Transparent Scientific Language” (1956), passive voice is nothing but a
stylistic mode by which truly subjective views come across as objective, given, natural
and eternal. Rather than the rather human “I observed a certain natural phenomenon” we
have “A certain natural phenomenon was observed”. In the second sentence, it is implied
that anyone, anything, even God themselves could have observed the natural
phenomenon. Philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) explores the way by which bias
inherently cloaks our understanding of the world. According to Kant, our mind organizes
the world around us, from mystery and chaos into something orderly and familiar. But
this organization differs from person to person, mind to mind. Therefore, the true world is
likely not as we see it or understand it, and each of us sees the world differently from one
another. Ultimately, the objective world exists beyond, and without, our inherently
subjective minds (Velasquez, 2017).
The Effect of Objectivity on Language
What are the effects of a scientific technical language born out of this desire for
objectivity? A diffusion of science’s inhumane objectivity into language itself. Richard
Stivers, in his book Technology as Magic (2006) describes how science builds its
vocabulary. He writes how lexicographers have found science and technology to be
responsible for nearly half of the new words added to the English language in the 20th
century, and writes of a study conducted by Raymond Gozzi which reveals that 45% of
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the words created between 1960 and 1985 were created on behalf of science and
technology (Stivers, 2006). Uwe Poersken writes that “a scientist is fundamentally the
master of his language” (Poersken, 2004, p. 43). The scientist explores and occasionally
creates concepts and so has to name them. The scientist uses symbols or phrases whose
purpose is to suggest something “briefly and unambiguously” (Poersken, 2004, p. 43)
without being applicable to other concepts. The scientist therefore enjoys a language
made for exactly this purpose, a language that is not common. Science and the common
vernacular are kept separate. In her book, The Human Condition (1958), German
philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) addresses what it means for science and
language to remain unmixed, for logic and reason to leave behind the poetic, human,
familiar and relatable. She notes that “the ‘truths’ of the modern scientific worldview”
can be “demonstrated in mathematical formulas and proved technologically” (Arendt,
2012, p. 3), but will not be understood in normal language. She says that “the sciences
today have been forced to adopt a ‘language’ of mathematical symbols” (Arendt, 2012, p.
3), originally meant as abbreviations or placeholders for common language, but now can
be strung together to form “sentences” that cannot be translated back into any vernacular.
The sciences have developed highly technical, specialized language. Arendt is concerned
about the political implications when ordinary people are unable to talk or think about
what science lets us do, requiring “artificial machines to do our thinking and speaking”
(Arendt, 2012, p. 3). In the end, because we are so often prompted to adopt the ways and
rites of science into our daily lives, “we would in all earnest adopt a way of life in which
speech is no longer meaningful” (Arendt, 2012, p. 3). Speech and the rules of grammar
become less important in the pursuit of the rules of nature, and clarity is sacrificed.
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Scientific Language Today
Scientists learn the technical language of their discipline (Rakedzon, Segev,
Chapnik, Yosef, & Baram-Tsabari, 2017; Sharon, Baram-Tsabari, 2014) without
understanding rhetoric—the idea that writing and language itself is a social act, involving
readers and standards for clarity (Rakedzon et al., 2017). There is another bias that
emerges when describing or relaying scientific findings, called the “curse of knowledge”
which suggests that people forget that they did not have the knowledge they do now
(Rakedzon et al., 2017; Sharon et al., 2014). This “curse” makes it difficult to recognize
the importance of clarity in writing. It makes it difficult for scientists to empathize with
their audience or to consider what their audience may or may not know or understand.
There are two specific types of abstraction I will focus on in this thesis: scientific jargon
and plastic words. While the data collection and analysis focus on plastic words, I feel
it’s important to include scientific jargon, to compare characteristics.

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Scientific Jargon
There is a name for the mechanical language Arendt and Poersekn describe, the
language scientists invent when they invent new concepts and need to name them
something that lies beyond common day-to-day language. Scientific jargon is the highly
specialized or technical terminology used in specific disciplines. In the OED, jargon is
defined as “Unintelligible or meaningless talk or writing; nonsense, gibberish. (Often a
term of contempt for something the speaker does not understand)” and “A conventional
method of writing or conversing by means of symbols otherwise meaningless; a cipher,
or other system of characters or signs having an arbitrary meaning” and ”Applied
contemptuously to any mode of speech abounding in unfamiliar terms, or peculiar to a
particular set of persons, as the language of scholars or philosophers, the terminology of a
science or art, or the cant of a class, sect, trade, or profession” (“jargon, n”, 2018).
Effects
Specialized terminology suggests professionalism. When scientists discover new
scientific findings, they create words to describe these findings, new highly specific
words that will not be used by everyone but almost entirely only by those in the specific
discipline in which the word was born. Use of jargon helps condense otherwise wordy
explanations. In specialized disciplines, use of that specialized jargon is effective in
communicating new findings (Rosenberg, 2012). For example, acronyms used for
shorthand, or fewer words to describe more complex phenomena that require lengthier
explanation, as can be discerned from the following example. In a sentence containing
scientific jargon, one could describe a certain cellular activity in this way: “The
phospholipid bilayer allows for bidirectional transport of cellular metabolites via
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membrane pores and transmembrane proteins” (Rosenberg, 2012, p. 2). A second
sentence containing no scientific jargon explains the same activity this way: “The cell
membrane allows for the entry of molecules needed by the cell as well as the exit of
molecules produced by the cell. Depending on the molecule, it will either pass through
small holes in the membrane called pores or through proteins embedded in the
membrane” (Rosenberg, 2012, p. 2). The difference of comprehension between the two
sentences is clear. Anyone who is not a specialist in cell membrane activity will be able
to understand the second sentence with more ease than the first.
However, outside of specialized disciplines, for the general public, this jargon
confuses. It distracts. It complicates and frustrates. It makes new discoveries in science
largely inaccessible because readers cannot grasp concepts when they are several layers
removed—abstracted—from their original context. Concepts are rendered in familiar and
idiosyncratic grammar and syntax becoming in effect a foreign language, unreadable and
unspeakable by those for whom the language nonetheless bears upon. This creates a form
of illiteracy that forecloses politically consequential engagement with scientific problems
on the part of the public.
Such barriers to understanding are measurable. It is estimated that in general
academic texts, there is 5% jargon, 80% high frequency or commonly used familiar
words and somewhere between 8-10% academic vocabulary. In scientific academic texts,
jargon is around 22%. According to a study by Marcella Hu Hsuech-Chao and Paul
Nation (2000), accurate comprehension of a document requires 98% familiarity with the
vocabulary. In a study on read-difficulty and comprehension among non-native adult
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readers, minimum comprehension required 95% familiarity with vocabulary (Rakedzon
et al., 2017). When the Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) test—which measures a text’s
readability from 0 (unreadable) to 100 (understandable)—was applied to ‘Summaries for
Policymakers’ from The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the
document scored below 20. The results of the study suggested not many people would be
able to make sense of IPCC texts. The IPCC monitors research in global climate change
with the charge of widely disseminating its findings, a task complicated by the fact that
their readability score is low and therefore difficult to understand (Barkemeyer, 2016).
There are methods and models, tools and tricks that exist to help scientists write
in clearer ways. Being aware of effects of jargon and the importance of clear writing can
help. Keeping the audience in mind is another way to keep from slipping into specialized
language without clarification. There is even a software program called Automatic Jargon
Identifier, which scientists can use to scan their documents and to make their writings
more accessible and transparent to the public (Rakedzon et al., 2017).
Scientific jargon contributes to inaccessible scientific writing, but it can also
diminish the scientist’s ability to communicate appropriately with other people. There are
times when this gap in understanding can result in real human consequences.
For example, when genetic counselors discuss with pregnant women the risks
their unborn children may pose, there is a tangible, if not “provable” dissonance between
the words and concepts that need to be relayed to the pregnant woman and her own
understanding of her baby. Silya Samerski describes this effect in the word “gene” in the
context of genetic counseling. She writes: “On the one hand, ‘gene’ demands
significance, meaning. On the other hand, it cannot signify anything outside the lab. This
33

paradox enables the ’gene’ to work as a bridge between statistics and real life” (Samerski,
2002, p. 3). She goes on to relay a scene in which a genetic counselor seeks to advise a
pregnant woman:
1. The geneticist talks to a laywoman. He has to spell out his knowledge in such a
way that normal people can follow him. To do so, he has to find everyday words
for notions like chromosomal aberration, DNA-mutation and probability model.
2. Once talked to, the client is urged to make a decision. This decision is, in some
way, a decision about life and death, about delivering a child or terminating a
pregnancy. Facing the counselor’s genetic mumbo jumbo the client inevitably
asks herself: What does all this say about me? What does all this mean to me?
Genetic counseling is a glaring example of the clash between scientific concepts
and everyday meaning (Samerski, 2002, p. 6).
We can see here how the objective word “gene”, when used in this sort of delicate
situation that would greatly benefit from sensitivity to and skillfulness in translating
between specialized jargon and the ordinary vernaculars of lay people, aggravates
confusion, dissonance and distance between pregnant woman and genetic counselor.
Intentional, objective abstraction from human emotion and bias carried into this sort of
situation is emotionally harmful. To the would-be mother, her own child has been
transformed before her very eyes into a potentially dangerous risk.
Scientific jargon isn’t itself necessarily problematic. In fact, it is an unavoidable
language. It is necessary to create new words as new concepts are created, and natural
phenomena discovered. Creating new words, too, is a fundamental component of
language that keeps it alive and relevant as our values, beliefs and ways of
communicating with one another and within the world around us shift and change.
However, the abstracting inhuman way of relaying certain scientific jargon is startling, as

34

we can see in the gene episode above. This episode is so startling because of the power
that the scientific jargon term ‘gene’ has.
Our Culture and Science Communication Today
Our culture today largely valorizes science. Science can be almost impossible to
challenge. Science has enabled policies that have direct effects upon our ways of living
and knowing. Historically, phrenology provides an example of the harms done when
ideology masked as science underlies policy-making. As long as science shapes policy
and social thought, there is a dire need for its language to be more accessible, otherwise
the general population is subjected to policies, rules and regulations which they cannot
understand or challenge.
On the other hand, there is one form of science which is noticeably and arrogantly
being ignored today. We are in the midst of a climate crisis, exacerbated by an
ideologically-driven denial of climate change. The current president of the United States
of America, Donald J. Trump, is using his power to roll back policies and regulations put
into place to curb causes and aggravators of global warming (MacMillan, 2017). This
denial and widespread mistrust of science and the educated elite seems to this author a
rebellion against historical science’s mistrust of non-scientists and uneducated mass
thanks largely to leading figures during the scientific revolutionary period, like Francis
Bacon. This pivotal argument seems to this author to be a symptom of undemocratic
communication within and around science today. Rather than an utter rejection of
science, Trump uses the selfsame words of power, plastic words, to promote his own
alternate narrative against the scientific agenda. In his speech in which he withdraws the
United States of America from the Paris Climate Accord, he argues that the Paris Climate
35

Accord diminishes production, and reduces development1 (Trump, 2017). For this author,
it is not the message carried that bears complaint, but the way by which the message is
carried. Uwe Poersken writes, “these opaque vocabularies above all shout ‘science!’”
(Poersken, 2004, p.75). The words Trump uses are, ironically, cloaked in the very same
sort of scientism he argues against. With these words, even the weakest argument can
gain momentum and power.
Therefore, this author would suggest a fundamental rethinking of science’s place
in culture. I believe that to humble science is to elevate it. It is important not just to
admit, but to emphasize that this worldview of understanding nature and reality rests on a
certain amount of uncertainty. Further, we see science as something that gives us gifts,
makes our lives easier, tells us how to live longer, better, shows us how to do things
faster, unveils hidden mysteries of the earth, the universe, the multiverse. At the center of
this powerful discipline is the fact that we cannot speak within it. To have an
unchallengeable discipline at the core of a democratic society is hypocritical; it is not a
true democracy. Some may argue that it is the job of popular science journalists, and not
scientists, to translate scientific findings to the public. Writers such as Malcolm Gladwell,
Atul Gawande, Michael Pollan, and others take more complex scientific issues and
rearrange them into manageable, simplified, energized pieces for non-scientists to
consume with more ease. The problem with this “translation” is that it is not a translation
of information, but an oversimplification of complex issues. Whether or not this
simplification is intentional, these popular science journalists are making people believe

1

Production and Development are plastic words. For a full list of Uwe Poersken’s plastic words, see page
46.

36

they understand something completely which they may actually not understand. For
example, a New Yorker article by Kathryn Shulz came out in March of 2018 describing
the noxious invasion of stink bugs. The article vividly and stylistically paints these
creatures as swarming entities straight out of a horror film. Many letters to the editor
praise the author’s rambunctious tone, writing “I simply could not tear myself away. That
she was able to lure me in and keep me reading to the very end is proof of her spellweaving ability” (Horowitz, 2018) or “What a disgusting story, brilliantly written:
Stephen King meets Rachel Carson” (Walter-Toews, 2018). Yet one reader shared this
insight:
As Mark Twain noted, ‘Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.’ Schulz
relies on the same highly militarized and villainizing language that’s widely used
to describe other so-called invasive species. These critters have arrived in their
new homes not of their own agency but through careless (and sometimes
intentional) handling by humans. Our breathtaking sense of exceptionalism
insures that our errant ways in bringing pests from elsewhere is never our fault but
somehow that of the organisms themselves. They are blamed for doing what all
organisms do—attempt to reproduce and survive. As loathsome as they might
smell, act, or be, they are not the villains in these environmental dislocations; we
are (Lewis, 2018).
Popular science here perpetuates a misleading and biased story about invasive species,
easily and eagerly consumed by a public, save for one careful reader. This popular
science glorification and romanticism of a phenomena in turn tends to encourage people
to very highly regard a discipline they do not understand, but one that has control over
the way they see themselves, each other and the world around them. When dealing with
science, which has a vast magnitude of power, we must ask if this simplification, through
use of metaphor and other devices, is it a service or a manipulation?

37

Today we live in what is colloquially called “The Information Age”, which
suggests that we have easy access to information. True, “information” can be accessed
with near instantaneous speed almost anywhere in the world. This access has the potential
to make scientific findings reach more people. While the public can easily access
scientific findings, they may not have equal access to understanding what these findings
mean (Barkemeyer, 2016). I argue that it is necessary to promote the clarity and
readability of scientific texts and that it is possible to do so without compromising
professionalism or abandoning necessary jargon and terms of art.
Metaphors
The price of metaphor is eternal vigilance.
– David Cayley
We have already examined the OED definition of metaphors, but let’s unpack and
probe them further. Metaphors marry two different ideas between two different realms
into one notion. Metaphors are a sort of linguistic alchemy, turning one thing into
something completely different. Where a simile will say one thing is like another,
metaphor will say one thing is the other. An example is ‘Juliet is like the sun’ vs ‘Juliet is
the sun’. In poetry, literature, or drama, the use of metaphors tends to be stylistic;
invoking aesthetic elements of natural world that stir emotion (Phillips, 2017). In
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Romeo compares Juliet to the Sun using a metaphor:
“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?/ It is the east and Juliet is the sun”
(Shakespeare, 1965, p. 36). Metaphors are effective tools of persuasion, because they
invoke emotion from something familiar or universal, like the brilliant sun, into the
something they want the audience to understand, like Romeo’s perception of his love
38

Juliet (Phillips, 2017). They can help an audience to empathize, which is to feel the
emotion of another (fictional or otherwise).
In the arts—literature, drama, poetry, the persuasive use of metaphor is essentially
a harmless, stylistic element that serves to illustrate and generate empathy and beauty.
When used in disciplines of power, like policy, government, and science, however, this
persuasive rhetorical tool can be controlling, suggestive and manipulative. As Colin
Koopman describes in his article “The Algorithm and the Watchtower” (2015):
To make sense of the new political power that can be built out of all this data
requires metaphors, and these metaphors themselves are not without political
stakes. Metaphors help shape the meanings of the activities in which we are
engaged and they thereby help condition what possible actions we can conceive
ourselves as undertaking. Metaphors thus have a political stake in that they define
the forms of power that control us and the forms of possible resistance to power
we can imagine (Koopan, 2015).
Metaphor, then, can become a tool of propaganda in the hands (or mouths) of the
powerful. Some metaphors are obvious, such as “time is money.” Even though this is
clearly a bit of poetry, it nevertheless governs how we think about time. The danger of
metaphor is when they are subtler and when we forget their literary foundation. Nonfiction writer Eula Biss writes about anthropologist Emily Martin who asked a group of
scientists about the reliance on war metaphor to describe the body’s immune system.
Some disagreed that it was a metaphor. They replied that that was just “how it is” (Biss,
2011, p. 56). The linguistic alchemy is thorough, and somewhere down the line as we
spray poison across our lawns, we might really believe that a dandelion is an invading
enemy.

39

Figure 2 Soldiers Marching

Figure 3 Marching for Pesticides

40

Why are Metaphors used in Science?
In Metaphors We Live By (1980), George Lakoff and Mark Johnson describe
various metaphors that have slipped into vernacular and become unnoticed. For instance,
Lakoff and Johnson describe the generically adopted idea that argument is war by calling
to mind various phrases that refer to arguments but invoke militaristic metaphors.
Examples include:
“Your claims are indefensible.
He attacked every weak point in my argument.
His criticisms were right on target.
I demolished his argument.
I’ve never won an argument with him.
You disagree? Okay, shoot”
If you use that strategy, he’ll wipe you out.
He shot down all of my arguments” (Lakoff & Johnson, 2011, p. 4).
Science is no exception; Alan Gross, in his text Rhetoric of Science (1996) writes
“Science is full of metaphor, and it is the nature of metaphor deliberately to misname”
(Gross, 1996, p. 80). This phrasing implies intentional manipulation, but metaphors are
so often used in science specifically because they make more complex concepts easier to
understand. Conveying these abstract scientific findings in a clear comprehensive way
often requires metaphor.
Some Common Science Metaphors
Scientist Richard Lewontin describes a metaphor called “the billiard ball model of
molecules” (Lewontin, 2009, p. 238) which is used in physics to explain how molecules
bump into and rebound off of each other—like billiard balls. This metaphor, he argues, is
harmless because we use the idea of billiards to make sense of molecular behavior but we
don’t imagine that molecules are billiards—colored balls with numbers on them. In
41

contrast, there are trickier metaphors (Lewontin, 2009). For example, health and
medicine rely on militaristic metaphors: germs invade the body, the patient fights or
combats illness. Likewise, invasive species management relies on a similar metaphor of
militarism and war. These militant metaphors are easy to swallow, visible and evocative.
American writer Susan Sontag explores why misuse of militant metaphors tend to lean
towards propagandist agendas. She writes:
Indeed, the transformation of war-making into an occasion for mass ideological
mobilization has made the notion of war useful as a metaphor for all sorts of
ameliorative campaigns whose goals are cast as the defeat of an ‘enemy’…Abuse
of the military metaphor may be inevitable in a capitalist society, a society that
increasingly restricts the scope and credibility of appeals to ethical principle, in
which it is thought foolish not to subject one’s actions to the calculus of selfinterest and profitability. War-making is one of the few activities that people are
not supposed to view ‘realistically’; that is, with an eye to expense and practical
outcome. In all-out war, expenditure is all-out, unprudent—war being defined as
an emergency in which no sacrifice is excessive (Sontag, 1989, p. 99).
Sontag here unites capitalism and war to explain why militant metaphors are especially
successful in shaping our perceptions and responses. It is because they feed off a
common self-serving, and as Sontag suggests unethical predisposition which, she argues,
we can attribute to capitalist society. Capitalism praises self-centered survival above all
else, and in war it is every man for himself. Her quote suggests that, in capitalist society,
we are waging war with everyone else, because they are not us. Poet Franco “Bifo”
Berardi similarly suggests: “Only an act of language escaping the technical automatisms
of financial capitalism will make possible the emergence of a new life form” (Berardi,
2011, p. 157). So it is not necessarily metaphors of militarism and war, but ultimately
modes of thought associated with capitalism that may be the true enemy, starving out
alternate perspectives.
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Figure 4 Kill Capitalism Not Weeds Graffiti

43

In a slightly different vein, let us see what happens when wheat becomes a
product and soil becomes a resource. As economic terms are applied to natural
phenomena our understanding of the world is changed. Agriculture employs economic
metaphors to maintain a capitalist and monetary perspective of the land. Economic
metaphors are rampant in agriculture, and it is because land today has become a
commodity. Food costs money, and so food has become money. The
economic/agricultural terminology exchange goes both ways—we refer to stocks or
money growing in our bank accounts. In each of these cases, from medicine to the stock
market, we have ceased to recognize the operation of metaphor. How else can you
describe what money does when it’s in a stock? Of course wheat is a product, what else
could it be? But once upon a time, wheat was nothing more than a gold-yellow plant
growing from the ground rippling pleasantly in the wind, looking stunning in sun against
the backdrop of blue sky. Now wheat is a product grown out of a resource, or even: now
wheat is money grown out of money. First food was grown and eaten. Food was food.
Then it was sold for money and now it is money. This is the great linguistic alchemy of
metaphor: money doesn’t grow on trees because, well, trees are money. These sorts of
metaphors are familiar and cozy. They fit snuggly into place. In these cases, “it’s easy to
forget that metaphors are metaphors, that they are provisional and limited comparisons,
not literal descriptions” (Lewtonin, 2009, p. 238). These metaphors are strong because of
the scientific sounding words in them, but when we forget that they are metaphors we
regrettably think we know they are fact.
In an interview with writer David Cayley, Richard Lewontin describes the
problem with uniting previously unrelated theories across disciplines. He explores
44

bringing the idea of evolution into different disciplines or arenas, for example,
considering how human societies change over time as evolution. This bridging of ideas
makes it easy to understand an interpretation of this history, but it is still only an
interpretation. It is easy to understand because it uses the concept of evolution—which is
well known. However, it is essentially inaccurate, because human societies change in
ways that are fundamentally different from Darwin’s theory of evolution. Evolution
suggests a step-by-step increasing complexity. Societies, however, do not evolve in the
way that an animal does—in lay terms, by becoming better adapted (Lewtonin, 2009). As
ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) warns us in Rhetoric (350 BC); “in
using metaphors to give names to nameless things, we must draw them not from remote
but from kindred and similar things, so that the kinship is clearly perceived as soon as the
words are said” (Aristotle, 350 BC, p. 4). There’s always been a danger in stretching the
bridge of metaphor too far. We need only glance at the unsustainable way most people
live now compared to how people used to live as proof enough that societies do not
necessarily change or evolve for the better, if at all.
Of course—not to dwell on the obvious—language itself is metaphor. Words are
not the things they describe. When calling a chair a chair, we are calling a unique, one of
a kind object a name that many other distinct objects are called. The thing which I am
currently sitting on right now is not a chair. Chair is just a name we have invented to
exchange the idea of chair with one another. My name is Clare, but Clare is not what I
am. To borrow once again from William Shakesepare’s (1564-1616) Romeo and Juliet
(1492):

45

Tis but thy name that is my enemy./ Thou art thyeself, though not a Montague./
What’s Montague? It is not hand, nor foot,/ Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part/
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!/ What’s in a name? That which we
call a rose/ By any other word would smell as sweet./ So Romeo would, were he
not Romeo called… (Shakespeare, 1965, p. 37).
Strange that a passage from Shakespeare would provide a strong caution about the power
of language to seduce and persuade. Scientists and Shakespeare both toil in the world of
metaphor, a medium of linguistic exchange where nothing is innocent.
Authors Derrick Jensen and George Draffen, in their book, Welcome to the
Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control (2004) explore the etymology
of science. Science comes from the Latin scientia and sciens, which mean having
knowledge. The present participle of this Latin word is scire which means to know. Scire
relates to the Sanskrit word Chyati which means cuts off. If we bring this word back into
Latin, we get scindere which means to split or cleave. In Greek, that word is schizein, to
split. Schizein is the root for the psychological disorder schizophrenia meaning split
mind. The characteristics of schizophrenia are: “a loss of contact with the environment,
illogical patterns of thinking and acting, delusions and hallucinations, and a noticeable
deterioration in the level of functioning in everyday life” (Jensen & Draffen, 2004, p. 25).
This etymology shows a linguistic parallel between the action of splitting that is at the
root of the term ‘schizophrenia’ and the effects of the kind of inaccessible and abstract
language used in science, split off from the vernacular. Both are abstract, cut away from
the everyday. Both terms indicate a splitting. “Science, scire, scindere, schizein,
schizophrenia. A mind split into pieces” (Jensen & Draffen, 2004, p. 25). Without
ascribing mental illness to scientists, it’s possible to see similarities between science and
46

this specific psychosis, as both remove the seeing from seer. They are an abstraction from
the world. This, regrettably, is the end goal in the pursuit for objectivity.
Plastic Words
In 2004, Uwe Poersken wrote a book called Plastic Words: The Tyranny of a
Modular Language (2004) which discusses ‘plastic words’, named by Poersken for their
malleability. Plastic words stem from the vernacular, migrate into scientific discourse,
and then return to the vernacular. In this migration, meaning is lost (Poersken, 2004).
Here are Uwe Poersken’s plastic words:
accomplishment
basic needs
capitalization
care
center
communication
consumption
contact
decision
development
education
energy
exchange
factor
function
future
growth
health
identity
information
living standard
management
modernization
model
partner
planning
problem
process
production
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productivity
progress
project
quality
raw material
relationship
resource
role
service
sexuality
solution
strategy
structure
substance
system
value
work
workplace
(Poersken, 2004, p. 62).
Poersken’s plastic words are imprecise and vague, often interchangeable. For
example, “communication” can be used to describe many different things: a person
talking to another person, a cat meowing to and interacting with another animal, a
smartphone receiving data from a satellite, etc. More specifically descriptive and
contextualized terms, like talk, meow, or transmitting data are eschewed in favor of a
generalizing, less communicative term: “communication”.
In the final pages of his book, Poersken includes a list that chronicles the 30
characteristics of plastic words. These characteristics show the ways in which plastic
words simplify, reduce, and homogenize language decreasing its precision and contextual
efficacy.
These characteristics are well worth chewing over, savoring, drinking deeply. You
will find the taste of them familiar. For this thesis I focus on a few specific characteristics
48

of plastic words. They are in bold and then further elaborated upon below (See Appendix
1 for complete list).
1.
2.
3.
4.

The speaker lacks the power to define the word.
The word is superficially related to scientific terms. It is a stereotype.
It has its origin in science.
It is carried over from one sphere into another, and is in that sense a
metaphor.
5. It forms an unnoticed link between science and the everyday.
6. It has a very broad application (lit. domain of use).
7. It displaces synonyms.
8. It replaces the conventional, precise word.
9. It replaces an indirect way of speaking or a silence.
10. It condenses a huge field of experience in one expression.
11. It is impoverished in content.
12. Its imagery is vapid and diffuse.
13. It is historically disembedded.
14. It transforms history into a laboratory.
15. It dispenses with the question of value.
16. The ‘aura’ and associations of the word dominate.
17. It names a property and contains the appearance of an insight.
18. It has more of a function than a content.
19. As a scientific ‘idealization’ of something limitless it uncovers and awakens
needs.
20. Its ‘naturalness’ strengthens this pull.
21. The resonance of the word is imperative.
22. It has multiple uses.
23. Its use increases prestige.
24. It leads to silence.
25. It anchors the need for expert help in the vernacular and serves as a
resource.
26. It forms new words and is a flexible instrument in the hands of experts.
27. It makes previous words look out-of-date.
28. In this sense it is new.
29. It is an element of an international code
30. It lacks an intonation and cannot be replaced by pantomime or gesture
31. The speaker lacks the power to define the word.
32. The word is superficially related to scientific terms. It is a stereotype.
33. It has its origin in science.
34. It is carried over from one sphere into another, and is in that sense a
metaphor.
35. It forms an unnoticed link between science and the everyday.
36. It has a very broad application (lit. domain of use).
37. It displaces synonyms.
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38. It replaces the conventional, precise word.
39. It replaces an indirect way of speaking or a silence.
40. It condenses a huge field of experience in one expression.
41. It is impoverished in content.
42. Its imagery is vapid and diffuse.
43. It is historically disembedded.
44. It transforms history into a laboratory.
45. It dispenses with the question of value.
46. The ‘aura’ and associations of the word dominate.
47. It names a property and contains the appearance of an insight.
48. It has more of a function than a content.
49. As a scientific ‘idealization’ of something limitless it uncovers and awakens
needs.
50. Its ‘naturalness’ strengthens this pull.
51. The resonance of the word is imperative.
52. It has multiple uses.
53. Its use increases prestige.
54. It leads to silence.
55. It anchors the need for expert help in the vernacular and serves as a
resource.
56. It forms new words and is a flexible instrument in the hands of experts.
57. It makes previous words look out-of-date.
58. In this sense it is new.
59. It is an element of an international code
60. It lacks an intonation and cannot be replaced by pantomime or gesture
(emphasis mine, Poersekn, 2004, p. 22-23)
Plastic words are the siblings of scientific jargon, but quite removed. They were
in the vernacular until adopted by science, and so they carry the weighted power of
science, but are in fact weightless in meaning and signification. Because they are so very
light, they can be easily carried over to radically different concepts, realms and
disciplines, and still promenade a sense of scientific power. Therefore, they neatly bridge
the objective world of science with the everyday, but they do so covertly and discreetly,
unnoticed. They are single words with countless applications, eradicating or making
obsolete their kindred synonym words or phrases. They erase history and context,
because they replace more precise and accurate explanation with a solitary empty word—
50

collapsing vast histories into definitive words. In this collapse, they reject the possibility
of alternate historical trajectories, which is for them to say that things as they are could
not have happened in any other way. The way the words feel and sound, and the power
they radiate are far more important than anything they might mean or suggest. They serve
to evoke power rather than to clarify or explain. Because they flow from science into the
vernacular, they have the feeling of the scientific, the natural and the believable. Using
these words make one seem smart, elite, and powerful. These words generates silence
among recipients of the message—they do not offer room for contestation, conversation,
disagreement, alternatives. Because they lack meaning, and are simultaneously used by
experts or officials to explain, they make it so that one relies upon those experts in power.
They differ from the vernacular. While vernacular words similarly can have obscure,
difficult-to-grasp meanings, the context surrounding any vernacular word will ground it.
Plastic words can be slung repeatedly in a single context, and have varied meanings
throughout.
Plastic Words and Scientific Jargon
Their vernacular origins would seem to make plastic words the inverse of
scientific jargon, which emerges from scientific language and rarely mingles with the
vernacular. Furthermore, terms in scientific jargon retain their meanings consistently in
their context, while plastic words are malleable. However, while the they appear
dichotomous in these respects, their exclusionary effects are similar. They both abstract
and distance. Plastic words and scientific jargon both describe terms that are hard to
translate broadly and meaningfully. However, when we hear scientific jargon, we do not
presume to understand it (unless we are well oriented in the sub-discipline of that brand
51

of scientific jargon). Compared to scientific jargon, plastic words are trickier largely
because of their widespread use. They hide in plain sight.
Let’s unpack the words developed and underdeveloped. Uwe Poersken and
Wolfgang Sachs both describe this story and what it set in motion. Harry Truman, in his
inaugural speech, coined the term underdeveloped when referring to certain areas that
make up more than half the world. Sachs writes “[f]or the first time, the new world view
was announced: all peoples of the earth were to move along the same track and aspire to
only one goal—development” (Sachs, 1999, p. 3). This moment served as a global
paradigm shift for thinking about how countries work and what they work towards.
Poersken unpacks how the rules of grammar are ignored when the word ‘development’ is
used today: “Only the ongoing developments of the fifties gave the teachings of Marx
and Engels the place due to them at the University . . . this process completed itself on the
soil of the German Democratic Republic” (Poersken, 2004 p. 20). The word development
in this sentence is both an active subject doing the developing and the developments
themselves. Simply, “Development develops” (Poersken, 2004, p. 20). Under the banner
of development, the United States legitimizes invasion and intervention of other countries
and cultures under the guise, the euphemism, of development. Poersken writes: “With a
word such as development, one can ruin an entire region” (Poersken, 2004, p. 7).
Development is a plastic word, and it bleeds into other realms. In psychology there are
step-by-step levels a parent is supposed to track to ensure that their child achieves the
reassuring status of normal child development. A fetus develops in similar step-by-step
levels. Moreover, building a building of apartment complexes is also considered
development. This amorphous quality of words comes up in other names. Michel
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Foucault describes this as incongruous. Similar to Richard Lewontin’s disparage of
incongruous metaphors, Foucault argues that uniting certain separate ideas are
inappropriate: “word should be taken in its most literal etymological sense; in such a
state, things are ‘laid’, ‘place’, ‘arranged’ in sites so very different from one another that
it is impossible to find a common place beneath them all” (Foucault, 2004, p. xix).
Plastic Words and Metaphor
The way plastic words are used, Poersken explains, is similar to how metaphors
are used. They both carry an idea specific from one domain to another completely
different domain (Poersken, 2004). Plastic words share the danger of an overused
metaphor conventionally misapplied—
“the chasm between the sphere of origin and the sphere of application is easily
overlooked. There is no tension; no spark jumps between the two spheres. They
are tied together seamlessly. Their original separation is hardly remembered. The
result: one takes the word for the thing” (Poersken, 2004, p. 76).
As with metaphors when plastic words are used so integrally within a new
context, original meaning is lost and we begin to believe in the word as it settles, it
becomes familiar to us, and it gains power. Plastic words are adept in many disciplines—
they habitat these new domains well, make themselves comfortable and take charge. But
most importantly, they do so inconspicuously. It is as if they have always been there, in
this other context, sphere, discipline. Poersken mentions that “Our language is quite
fragile, has little native resilience” (Poersken, 2004, p. 94). Is it worth noting here that
plastic words strike more than a passing metaphorical resemblance to invasive species?
Yes, plastic words are kind of how we are made to think about invasive species, as
crossing borders or contexts, eradicating other species or words, replacing diversity with
53

singularity. This chameleon trait and quick ability to adapt, Poersken notes, is why plastic
words are “so well suited for colonization” (Poersken, 2004, p. 85).
In a case of plastic word-qua-metaphor, nonfiction author Eula Biss explores the
concept of an immune system in a series of interviews and reveals another instance in
which metaphor and plastic word appear to run together under the banner of science.
The term immune system… was probably a metaphor from its very introduction.
In a medical context, the word system traditionally referred to a collection of
organs or tissue, but the immunologists who first adopted it were using it in a
broader sense. ‘Why was the term immune system accepted so widely and so
rapidly?’ asks the historian of immunology Anne Marie Moulin. The answer, she
suggests, resides in its ‘linguistic versatility,’ the ability of the term to contain
many concepts and multiple understandings. It entered the mainstream just a few
years after its introduction to science, spilling into the popular usage of the 1970s.
‘Though the term was borrowed from the science of immunology,’ Fitzpatrick
writes, ‘its new meaning was filled out with ideas derived from influential
contemporary trends, notably environmentalism, alternative health and New Age
mysticism (Biss, 2014, p. 133).
Here we see how the metaphoric phrase immune system had us forget it was a metaphor
and had us take it for fact. This is not to say that a gradual change of meaning that reflects
societal and cultural change renders language meaningless—far from it. The ability for
language to warp and change alongside its culture is a testament to its aliveness. Words
are variable, mutable, interpretable. It is far more a problem when a word can change in
meaning at whim, or when context provides no illumination of a word’s meaning, as is
quite often the case of plastic words. Plastic words mimic aliveness of language in their
mutability but are hollowly ahistorical, story-less and will differ from context to context,
mouth to mouth. Words can have many different interpretations, but plastic words mean
many different things. For a plastic word, there is no unanimous consensus of definition.

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Invasive Species
Invasive species are considered non-native species that are, have or will become
injurious to the region into which they are introduced. It is more likely that non-native
species will become injurious for several reasons, including: wide dispersal, generally
high tolerances, lack of native predators and general unpredictability of their presence in
a new region (Verbrugge et al., 2016). Climate change and anthropogenic factors increase
the dispersal of invasive species to an unprecedented degree, and immediate action is
often required to prevent potentially disastrous environmental or socio-economic
degradation (Verbrugge et al., 2016). A discourse exists around invasive species
management that makes it difficult to conceive of alternate options or narratives, and the
current discourse raises confusion, inaccessibility and misleading terminology.
Invasive Species and Metaphor
Today, invasive species management looks to minimize confusion in its
discourse. The Invasive Species Definition Clarification and Guidance White Paper
(2006) attempts to clarify terms and definitions (See Appendix 5). While the current
definitions seek to avoid specialized terms and scientific jargon, invasive species
management discourse is still rife with plastic words and militaristic metaphors. To begin
unpacking the invasive species paradigm, it is essential to dissect the term and
terminology associated with invasive species.
Technical Definition
According to the National Invasive Species Council (NISC), Executive Order
13112 defines an invasive species as: 1) non-native (or alien) to the ecosystem under
consideration and 2) whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or
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environmental harm or harm to human health (NISC, 2016). While this definition might
appear straightforward, it is worth unpacking. Let’s begin with the assertion that an
invasive species must be non-native.
An invasive species is: non-native (or alien) to the ecosystem under consideration
Determining the true nativity of a species is difficult, as credible historical data to
determine nativity is fragmented and brief. Many species we consider native have their
origins elsewhere. The further back in time we go, the less relevant the term native
becomes. One need only consider the origin of all life beginning in the ocean to recognize
all land-dwelling species as “invasive”. In the article “The Rise and Fall of Biotic
Nativeness: A Historical Perspective” co-authors Matthew K. Chew and Andrew
Hamilton (2011), deconstruct the concept of nativity in invasion biology, arguing that it
is a weak, contingent, and variable paradigm that leans heavily on subjective human bias
(Chew & Hamilton, 2011). It is an ideal that presupposes that a species belongs in a
singular locale. Fixing and fixating upon this belonging requires ignoring the ways in
which species create habitats by evolving and migrating. Habitats are not passively
awaiting organisms: organisms organize habitats. Richard Lewontin discusses this proxy
in his book Biology as Ideology (1991). Unlike the theories in Darwinism which suggest
this one-way street: that organisms are passive agents shaped by their active environment,
Lewontin argues instead that organisms that thrive within habitats act upon their
environments as much if not more than their environments act upon them. “Organisms”
he explains, “do not experience environments. They create them. They construct their
own environments out of the bits and pieces of the physical and biological world and they
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do so by their own activities” (Lewontin, 1991, p. 109). Where and why does a given
species belong to a specific place? Does a species belong solely to the location from
which it first evolved? How can it be limited to that singular locale? Nativity is an old
ideal, which sets a conservation goal of restoring ecosystems to pre-colonized states
(Chew & Hamilton, 2011). This is an ideal born out of the separation of man from nature,
instigated by the father of modern science Rene Descartes in the 17th century, and
foundational for many underlying scientific beliefs. These puritanical ideals, with their
myth of origins, aspire to fix and contain a volatile nature, a living world that is always
shifting, changing, adapting and evolving.
An invasive species must: cause or be likely to cause economic or environmental harm or
harm to human health.
Determining any extant harm is difficult and subjective. The word “health” is a
plastic word, which exacerbates the confusion. These are words and concepts that can
mean different things to different people. The National Invasive Species Management
Plan (NISMP) recognizes this variability of these words, and offers The Invasive Species
Definition Clarification and Guidance Paper (2006) in which they point out that while
some people may consider a species harmful, others may recognize and reap benefits
from that same species (ISAC, 2017). It follows that predicting the potential for
economic or biological harm is difficult. The vagaries of definition are compounded by
uncertain time-scales, which for an invasive species can be unpredictable. A non-native
species can take many years before becoming invasive (Chaffin & Hamilton, 2006).
In ordered to be labeled invasive, a species can certainly be extremely destructive,
like the Asian chestnut blight fungus (Cryphonectria parasitica) which swept across
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35,000 square miles of the eastern United States in the 19th Century, killing almost all
chestnut trees (Castanea dentata) in its path (Simberloff, 2003). But invasiveness casts a
wide net, as some invasive species are less harmful than they are ugly. An invasive
species’ only sin could be that it has the potential to decrease property value, causing
economic harm. Moreover, there is a dose a geographic alchemy, as an invasive species
in one region will be similarly labeled in another, far-distant region. In Australia, nonnative devil’s claw (Martynia annua) has been the costly subject of ecological eradication
efforts for over 20 years even though research has found no evidence to suggest that
devil’s claw contributes to loss of biodiversity or interferes with nutrient cycling, at least
in Australia (Davis, 2011). Harm of capital and economy are directly planted in this
definition of invasive species. Vandana Shiva writes in her text Monocultures of the
Mind: Perspectives on biodiversity and Biotechnology (1993) of a classic example of
how dominant knowledge systems can discount native plants as weeds if they are not
economically viable to those dominant knowledge systems. In a soundbite from a
statement of an international forestry consultant speaking about an ecosystem of the
humid tropics, she quotes “The important question is how much of this biomass
represents trees and parts of trees of preferred species that can be profitably
marketed…By today’s utilization standards, most of the trees, in these humid tropical
forests are, from an industrial materials standpoint, clearly weeds” (Shiva, 1993, p.
24). She further illustrates an extreme example whereby in India the native plant bathua
(Chenopodium album) is considered a weed by dominant knowledge systems. Bathua is a
native crop, nutritious and especially rich in Vitamin A but poses threat to the growth of
the more commercially viable wheat plant. Wheat has a high market value internationally
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while bathua is praised locally. Because Bathua and threatens productivity of wheat, it is
“managed” with herbicides. Meanwhile, 40,000 children go blind in India each year
because they do not have enough Vitamin A in their diets. These herbicides also kill the
wild reeds and grasses that rural Indian women use to make baskets and mats—a source
of income for these local people. When dominant knowledge systems are designed based
on market value and monetary gain, local perspectives of beneficial plants are negated if
those plants threaten commercial gain (Shiva, 1993). Shiva writes, “The one-dimensional
perspective of dominant knowledge is rooted in the intimate links of modern science with
the market” (Shiva, 1993, p. 27). In invasive species management, like many disciplines
in our capitalist society, we are largely inclined to think with our wallets.
Environmentalist and philosopher TJ Demos writes that perhaps we should “ecologize
the economy rather than economize the environment” (Demos, 2016, p. 150-151).
Technically, a species needs only to potentially decrease the value of a property in a
different continent to be labelled as invasive. This is an affront that can warrant
outstanding and costly prevention and eradication measures, in favor of potentially
preserving bank. The prevailing mentality in invasive species management is an
oversimplification of invasive species, and one in which more holistic assessments are
largely ignored.
What are the boundaries and limits of what constitutes an invasive species? Let’s
reflect on ourselves, for a moment. Is it surprising to recognize that human beings neatly
fit the technical definition of invasive species? We are a species originating from a single
region but have since spread globally, becoming a largely non-native species. We
inarguably contribute economic harm, environmental harm and harm to human health in
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many different ways. Let’s look at our impressive ability to change the very climate of
our world. According to the 2016 Environmental Protection Agency report of Climate
Change Indicators in the United States, anthropogenic fossil fuel burning and
deforestation are the main contributors to greenhouse gases and global warming. This
climate change alters the world and its historic functions, disrupts ecosystems, harms and
kills human and non-human communities, decreases biodiversity, and decreases quality
of life for people and non-humans all over the world (EPA, 2016). Human beings are
therefore arguably the most dangerous invasive species in the world. As invasive
biologist Brenden Larson muses “We may dislike IS [invasive species] because we
observe something in their behavior that we dislike about our own”, noting our similar
tendencies to expand and spread (Larson, 2010). He argues that “We characterize IS
[invasive species] as amoral in terms of numerous traits – aggressiveness and lack of
control, in particular – that ‘represent forbidden sides of human nature” (Larson, 2010).
What we fear of them, what we dislike about their patterns of behavior and tendencies are
what we fear and dislike within ourselves. We are invasive species, but we probably will
not admit it.

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Figure 5 I am not a weed

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Conceptualized Definition
The technical definition of invasive species itself is complicated, but there is also
a discrepancy between this technical definition and the conceptualized, practiced or
effectual definition. The words used to discuss and describe invasive species are widely
varied; even the term invasive
species has many synonyms. In
an article designed to
determine a neutral
terminology for invasive
species, Robert Colautti and
Hugh MacIsaac identified over
thirty terms that are used to
discuss invasive species, many
of which are used
interchangeably with the term
invasive species itself (Colautti
& MacIsaac, 2004). Table 1,
drawn from their article, lists
these terms. There seems to be
hardly any meaningful
distinctions between these
Table 1 Invasive Species Synonyms

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terms.

After analyzing the historical use of invasive terminology, Mark Davis (2009)
argues that the current definition of invasive species is varied, poorly articulated and
differs across cultural, political and regional borders (Davis, 2009). Davidson M.
Richardson (2011) lists operationally defined invasive species terms in the text Fifty
Years of Invasion Ecology: The Legacy of Charles Elton. Richardson also asserts that
invasion terminology differs widely across spatial and temporal scales. Before listing his
key terms (which extend for almost nine full pages), he explains that his motive for
establishing this list grew out of the varied and uncritical use of terminology in invasion
biology. He argued that the use of uncritical terminology serves to impede developments
in the field (Richardson, 2011). Invasive species management must reckon with the fact
that any discussion cannot rely on the shared understanding of any of these terms or their
definitions.
In short, the technical definition of invasive species is vague and subjective. The
terms associated with invasive species are variable and complicated—many different
words may mean the same thing while a single word may mean many things. Invasive
species is word that replaces more specific terminology, and lack of meaningful
distinctions between synonyms. It is a word used uncritically. It is metaphoric, linking
science with common ideas of everyday life. In this way, invasive species seems like a
plastic word. It is not true plastic, but carries many similar characteristics, of which it is
wise to be wary.
Despite these multifaceted definitions and terminologies, there is a prevailing
singular way of looking at invasives—as a threatening “other” that must be eradicated to

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preserve borders around “pure” ecosystems and environment—that is perpetuated
through military metaphors.
Military Metaphors
The current invasive species narrative relies heavily on militaristic metaphors.
Military metaphors are manipulative and generate biased implications which can be
easily overlooked or ignored because they are so pervasive and influential. Let us explore
in depth how this militant lexicon has come about.
In his book, Invasion Biology (2009), biologist Mark A. Davis contests the
dominant invasive species narrative and historicizes how invasive species have come to
be defined. The earliest recognition of an invasive species is undoubtedly impossible to
determine. Species migrate and spread, and have done so for millennia. When humankind
generally ceased its nomadic habits and settled, it is not unlikely that through observation
of their surroundings, our ancestors noticed the effects of introduced species established
through migration or anthropogenic trade. Our curiosity about invasive species most
likely goes back many thousands of years (Davis, 2009). However, the first known
references to non-native species in western science occurred in the 18th century during the
end of the Age of Discovery. Davis refers to a student of Carl Linnaeus who hoped to
bring non-native species to Sweden to grow for profit, as well as to Peter Kalm (17161779), who recorded the presence of European species he recognized in North America.
Davis notes how geographer and naturalist Alexander Humboldt (1769-1859) recognized
and recorded a global spread of certain species during his travels (Davis, 2011). Early

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encounters with these organisms (which would later be known as invasive species) had
an air of general curiosity, exciting discovery, and a desire to document and remember.
Biogeography
The emergence of biogeography, a discipline that focuses on the global migration
of flora and fauna, turned travelogue and anecdote into a more systematic examination of
native and non-native species. In particular, biogeography divided the globe into six
distinct regions, each characterized by differences in climate and environment. The
divided globe of biogeography may have helped bring about the concept of singular and
permanent native species, a complex phenomenon given the tendency of species to
regularly and obviously migrate between regions and across borders (Davis, 2009). In
this new regional order, species were condemned to originate from a singular location.
Botanist John Henslow is thought to have coined the term native in 1835. Its use rapidly
grew—just over a decade later, botanists had begun using terms alien and native to
describe plant species (Davis, 2011). In the 1860s there was recognition and discussion
among agricultural scientists in the United States that non-native species could be
harmful to native species, but so too was there a desire to “procure, propagate and
distribute…new and valuable seeds and plants” according to the first mission statement
of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) when it was created in 1862. By
the early 1900s, the harmful effects of particular non-native species were more widely
understood, and the militarization of the botanical lexicon began to emerge, particularly
with the initiation of the Plant Quarantine Act of 1912 and the establishment of the Plant
Quarantine and Control Administration of 1928 (Davis, 2009). These policies have
enabled the growth of a singular obsession to fight against invasion by non-native
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species. Preservation of nativity began as a way to protect against biodiversity loss, but it
would begin to fuel a militant overtone, a case of us vs them. In Borderlands/La Frontera
(1987), Gloria Anzaldúa alludes to the othering effects of borders: “The U.S.-Mexican
borders es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds.
And before the scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to
form a third country—a border culture. Borders are set up to define the places that are
safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them” (Anzaldua 1987, p. 3). This separation
between lands—between the us on one side and the them on the other would perpetuate
xenophobic or nationalistic way of thinking, even within the realm of invasive species.
Xenophobic Effects
It can hardly be surprising that a militant war metaphor would result in
xenophobia. Writer James Geary, in his book I is an Other (2011), describes an
experiment studying the social effects of using a body metaphor to explain a country.
There were two groups in the experiment. One group read an article about certain
airborne bacteria as omnipresent and harmful to humans, while the other group read
about the omnipresence of other bacteria that was harmless to humans. Then both groups
read articles on United States history; in which there was no mention of immigration.
However, one article relied on a metaphor that described the United States as a body—
using phrases like the country was experiencing a growth spurt, the country was digesting
innovations—while the other article did not rely on bodily metaphors. Both groups were
then made to fill out a survey, in which several questions referred to immigration. Those
who had read the article with a body metaphor expressed concern over and negative
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opinions of immigration. Interestingly, the group that read that airborne bacteria was
harmful to health had more positive views of immigration because it was this group that
had read the article that did not rely on the body metaphor. The results from this study
suggest that priming a person about a topic (like personal health) will likely determine
their attitude about some entirely different topic (like immigration) if these topics are
linked metaphorically (Geary, 2011).
Daniel Simberloff writes of a particularly unsettling example of nationalism in
invasive species management. In 1932, two garden architects created a Nazi campaign to
“cleanse the German landscape of unharmonious foreign substance [plant species]”
(Simberloff, 2003, p. 181). This botanical cleansing parallels the Nazi ideology of ethnic
cleansing (Simberloff, 2003). In the early 20th century, Jen Jensen, an immigrant from
Denmark to the United States, spoke of his garden in manner to suggest how nationalism
and racism can invade the invasive species dialogue. Although he initially embraced nonnative species, he later grew to oppose them. He said that he longed for his gardens to
exist, “in harmony with their landscape environment and the racial characteristics of its
inhabitants”, and that “they shall express the spirit of America and therefore have to be
free of foreign character as far as possible” (Simberloff, 2003, p. 183). He bemoans how
“the Latin and the Oriental crept and creeps more and more over our land, coming from
the South” and that “the Germanic character of our race, of our cities and settlements was
overgrown by foreign [character]” (Simberloff, 2003, p. 183). “Latin” he argues, “has
spoiled a lot and still spoils things every day” (Simberloff, 2003, p. 183). These are
clearly xenophobic utterances of a gardener dismayed at the presence of invasive species
in his garden. The war metaphor can exacerbate this xenophobia. Lorraine Daston and
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Robert Galison write of how xenophobia and racism occur within a native botanical
context. They write of the popular race-atlases created by Julius F. Lehmann (18641935), self-proclaimed of the far right political sphere. Lehmann, who would publish
works in genetics, eugenics and racial hygiene, created medical atlases for the widespread Medical journal Munich Medical Weekly. He later found success creating racial
atlases, which described physical characteristics to determine race. Lehmann wrote, in
1920, that he wanted to publish a “human field guide to the flora (Excursions, flora) of
Germany that, first of all, would layout the general racial markings in an exemplary
fashion” (Daston & Galison, 2007, p. 338). Daston and Galison write of the parallel
between people belonging to race and plants belonging to species, and explains how these
race atlases “could train the eye to see people as belonging to races, as particular flowers
could be seen in their taxonomic place…” (Daston & Galison, 2007, p. 338). During
World War II, the Nazis would use Lehmann’s work for their own eugenic devices.
In 1958, Charles Elton published The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and
Plants, in which he painted invasive species in vividly militaristic terms. His first
sentence exemplifies this militant mentality: “Chapter One: The Invaders. Nowadays we
live in a very explosive world, and while we may not know where or when the next
outburst will be, we might hope to find ways of stopping it or at any rate, damping down
its force” (italics mine, Elton, 1958, p. 15). Published in this post-war era, Elton’s book
is literally and metaphorically charged with visions of omnipresent of war and enemy.
Similarly, following the 9/11 attacks in the United States of America, certain invasive
species outbursts were compared to acts of terrorism (Larson, 2005). Elton’s text
inaugurates a fearful sense of dire urgency which prior discussions of invasive species
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lacked, and subsequent texts paralleled these extremes. The reception of his text did not
immediately instill a flurry of interest in invasion ecology research. Rather, it took a
quarter of a century after its publication before invasion biology began to emerge as a
new discipline, alongside the establishment of the Scientific Committee on Problems of
the Environment in 1983. It may have been a slowly emerging discipline, but interest in
the field has effectually surged since the 1980s. In its early instigation, the field was
primarily fueled by interested ecologists who viewed the discipline through a niche-based
ecological mentality in which species’ specific roles are analyzed. In this, they weighted
their research towards species separately and individually, largely ignoring more holistic
regional or historical factors. (Davis, 2011). While it took time for Elton’s book to take
hold, the militarism of his vision was undoubtedly foundational to invasive species
management. Invasions of species are now regarded as occurrences which must be
battled.
Further Issues with the Military Metaphor
The term invasive itself is inherently militaristic. While militant language may
serve to colloquialize the concept and spur support, it nevertheless enforces an aggressive
combative approach to invasive species management, making it difficult for general
negotiation with invasive species biologists (Davis, 2009). Biologist Brendon Larson
explores these militaristic associations. He explains how our current framework for
discussing invasive species management relies on the power of metaphor to generate a
unanimous understanding of invasive species. He adds that this can be misleading to the
public as it marks species metaphorically as malicious entities. Larson also points out
how this violent way of thinking diverges from the prevailing green environmental
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mentality of a harmonious co-existence between humankind and the world, and general
conservation values. The militaristic language used to discuss invasive species instills a
sense of urgency in management procedures, but can actually undermine conservation
efforts. Larson explains this as a multi-faceted problem.
The metaphor of war requires one to imagine two opposing sides, and to harbor
an us versus them mentality. This is contradictory given that invasive species are largely
an endemic problem because of anthropogenic factors like human globalization. The us
in this war facilitated the spread of them. We cannot be separated; we are the ones
creating the invaders. The use of a war metaphor pits us at opposing sides, but our
relationship with invasive species is complex and inherently entangled.
The metaphor of war suggests that there will be a winner, which is misleading.
There will never be a return to purity of natives in an ecosystem, particularly as climate
change and other anthropogenic factors continue enabling dispersal.
Such loaded military language may contribute to public resistance or distrust of
those using this language. Science is supposed to be objective, and loaded language bears
bias. A Pacific Northwest based study conducted on the role of ecologists in ecological
management suggested that the public preferred ecologists to inform and educate, rather
than argue for a particular mode of action (Larson, 2005).
Invasive species removal in certain areas of conservation or restoration will serve
to benefit upper middle-class citizens, and may therefore be perceived as an elitist
ecological pursuit. This class divide further distances the public from ecologists and
conservationists, and perpetuates public mistrust (Larson, 2005).
In another Larson (2007) article, Larson argues that the current invasive species
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paradigm perpetuates an obsolete way of thinking about ecosystems as stable systems
rather than as changing entities eternally subject to ecologically necessary disturbances.
He also emphatically argues against Cartesian dichotomy between humankind and nature.
He challenges us to recognize our role in the creation of such paradigms (Larson, 2007).
The militarization of the discourse around invasive species creates a generic sense
of otherness, and the invasive other seems to fall outside of natural law and is therefore
unnatural or alien. However, the notion that any species is alien and must be eradicated
seems itself to be an extremely unnatural vision for the natural world (Larson, 2007).
This singular vision has largely endured since the instigation of invasion biology
as a discipline. But the militarized language that structures the invasive species paradigm
should not be the sole and enduring conceptual basis of the field. It is overly rigid,
misleading and perhaps outdated. We need new ideas to evolve the paradigm (Davis,
2011). The term invasive interferes with our ability to imagine how some of these species
might be able to help rather than harm.
Managing Invasives
Generally, our mode of invasive species eradication is to act rapidly and
mercilessly to preserve local ecology and habitat. This way of eradication is laudable and
inarguably helpful in preventing an array of environmental harms and biodiversity loss—
which is one of the largest ecological threats to our world. However, this way of
eradication offers a complex challenge, both moral and practical.
Project Isabela offers one of the most controversial invasive species management
tactics I’ve come across. It involves the complete eradication of an invasive goat species
(Capra aegagrus hircus), left on the Galapagos island as a backup food source for
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fishermen in 1959. By 1997, the three goats the fishermen had left had become over
100,000, and had degraded the landscape and habitat of the island to an extreme degree.
To save what they could of the deteriorating islands, a multi-agency project entitled
Project Isabela was set into motion. The project suggested that the best way to preserve
and restore the landscape would be to shoot all the goats, on foot and from helicopters. In
order to make sure that every goat was eradicated, the snipers left what they referred to as
a “Judas goat”. The helicopter, having come across a goat pack, would slaughter all but
one goat, the “Judas goat”. Goats are pack animals, meaning they take comfort with their
own kind. So after its kin were slaughtered, this Judas goat would seek out other goats,
and the snipers would simply track down the Judas goat and slaughter another pack. They
would leave the Judas goat alive, and repeat until every goat was eradicated from the
Galapagos islands (Hirsch, 2013).
This is a dramatic examples of invasive species management. The invasive
Galapagos goat wrought nearly irreversible destruction upon the landscape it inhabited,
but I cannot imagine anyone who could not cringe from the thought of a Judas goat
repeatedly seeking out its kin only to see them shot down, again and again, around it.
Similarly, in the old growth forests of the West Coast, the invasive barred owl (Strix
varia) is shot down to save the local and endangered spotted owl (Strix occidentalis). In
conversation with a scientist in charge of shooting down an owl to save an owl, biologist
Lowell Diller admitted how the experience of shooting down owls has shaken him
emotionally, that every time he shoots an owl, he feels in his heart that he is doing wrong
(Shogren, 2014). There is no easy solution to invasive species and the ecological
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destruction they cause. These are controversial, and truly ethical dilemmas. I bring them
up only to offer a chance for contemplation.
There are several recent studies which suggest how accepted modes of eradication
can have unintended and counterproductive consequences.
A 2016 study entitled “Potential Problems of Removing One Invasive Species at a
Time: A Meta-Analysis of the Interactions Between Invasive Vertebrates and Unexpected
Effects of Removal Programs” conducted by Sebastián A. Ballari, Sara E. Kuebbing and
Martin A. Nuñez explores how the eradication of a single invasive species causes harm to
native species in an ecosystem as opposed to eradication of multiple at a time (Ballari et
al., 2016). They explain that “the removal of a single invasive species always led to a
negative or neutral mean effect on native species performance or survival” and “never
found a positive effect size where the removal of one invasive led to an increase in native
performance” (Ballari et al., 2016). This study exposes the fundamental problems with
hasty action.
Further, by destroying invasive species before they can cause any harm we also
lose the opportunity to examine an ecosystem’s potential resilience, or possible long-term
benefits of invasive species. Tomás Carlo partnered with Jason Gelditsch in a 2011 study
conducted to determine how sometimes invasive species work within their introduced
ecosystems to form mutualisms—mutually beneficial relationships with native plants.
Gelditsch and Carlo found that the honeysuckle plant (lonicera), which was invasive to
the region of their study, actually began to form these mutualisms with native bird
populations and with a native plant species (Gleditsch & Carlo, 2011). Carlo argues in an
interview that, given time, some invasive species may slip into empty niches of damaged
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ecosystems and can actually help rebuild and strengthen biodiversity in a natural selfsufficient way that generally does not require much intervention by humans. Our current
mode of eradication is also costly, time consuming and often unsuccessful. Carlo pushes
this point further by explaining that attempted eradication can be a waste because often
the invasive species will return (“Invasive plants can cause”, 2011). Carlo explains that
“Nature is in a constant state of flux, always shifting and readjusting as new relationships
form between species, and not all of these relationships are bad just because they are
novel or created by humans,’ Carlo said. ‘We need to be more careful about shooting first
and asking questions later—assuming that introduced species are inherently harmful. We
should be asking: Are we responding to real threats to nature or to our cultural perception
and scientific bias?” (“Invasive plants can cause”, 2011). With enough time, might
certain invasives integrate within local communities and prove beneficial as the
ecosystem adjusts? Are many of our efforts ultimately a waste of time, money and effort?
Tomás Carlo reaches a similar conclusion to the Ballari et al., study: that sometimes
destroying an invasive species serves to disrupt “newly formed balance of an ecosystem”
(“Invasive plants can cause”, 2011).
And yet slowing down to consider harm, failing to act quickly, can result in
irreversible environmental devastation. It is a complex problem, for which I argue a
greater, more open conversation within a more social and democratic science may help.
The term invasive and its militaristic undertones may get in the way of alternative
perspectives, providing overhasty eradication efforts that are either unnecessary or
provide more ecological damage than the presence of the invasive species.

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Ultimately, the militaristic paradigm is one of conformism. There is an instinctual
fear of the other, of that which is unknown or different, and we can see how the
metaphoric militarization of invasive species feeds off of one of humankind’s greatest
fears. H.P Lovecraft, legendary horror writer states that “The oldest and strongest
emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the
unknown” (Lovecraft, 1973, p. 12). In thriving off this intrinsic fear, this militant
metaphor is prevalent, and effectually starves out other frameworks. Our current invasive
species story treats invasive species as a kind of malicious entity acting outside natural
law in order to war against a pristine, stable, innocent ecosystem. In order to protect this
ecosystem, reductionist descriptions that rationalize the extermination of invasive species
is required. This is ethically, economically, ecologically and practically problematic. This
militaristic metaphor is an exacerbation of the symptom that suggests that human beings
are indeed separate from nature. In his essay “Getting Along With Nature”, farmer
Wendell Berry writes: “even as conservationists, we see the human and the natural
economics as necessarily opposite or opposed, we subscribe to the very opposition that
threatens to destroy them both” (Berry 2009, p. 18). This discordant us vs them falls apart
when we remember how anthropogenic invasive species are. As invasive species
management continues to move forward, its practitioners should seek consensus even as
they narrow and refine their terminology and broaden their metaphors. Instead of
generalizations based on war, a nuanced and democratic language will help to reinvent
the metaphorical representations of invasive species and their management. The invasive
species paradigm is a complex one, for which a singular militaristic narrative serves to
undermine, simplify and violently misrepresent the reality of invasive species. There are
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other ways of knowing and describing these complex phenomena which might replace
the current terminology.
Another Narrative for Invasive Species
Invasion ecology is a relatively new discipline. Interest in the field has exploded
in the last 25 years, and its narrative is still being written (Richardson, 2010). By 2010,
the US was spending $120 billion on invasive species, while the global cost was 5% of
the $1.4 trillion world’s economy (FWS, 2012). Although these staggering figures fuel
the widely accepted claim that invasive species are the second leading cause of
biodiversity loss next to habitat destruction, A 2004 study notes that there is very little
data to support this conclusion (Wilcove, Rothstein, Dubow, Phillipd & Losos, 1998).
Wilcove et al., show that the data for the United States is skewed by the inclusion of
information about Hawaii, which experiences more drastic biodiversity loss because it is
an island (Wilcove et al., 1998). Mark Davis compares this claim to a similar Canadabased study, which shows that invasive species contribute minimally to biodiversity loss
(Davis, 2010). Although invasive species can be harmful, the general panic is overblown,
and alternate perspectives are emerging. Today, as climate change shifts the earth and
globalization reveals the depth of connectivity between natural and social systems, we are
faced with the task of reevaluating many of our pre-established management practices.
Invasives and Resilience
A 2016 article entitled, “Biological Invasions, Ecological Resilience and Adaptive
Governance discuss the ways by which the current narrative ignores a more holistic way
of understanding ecosystems” highlights the ways by which invasives can serve to
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strengthen ecosystems. The authors argue that the war narrative has created a
management approach that is focused on pure reductionism of invasives followed by
difficult restoration projects (Chaffin, Garmestani, Angeler, Herrmann, Stow, Nystrom,
Sendzimir, Hopton, Kolasa & Allen, 2016). This agenda largely overlooks ecological
resilience of ecosystems. Chaffin et al., suggest, like the Ballari et al., (2016) and
Gelditsch and Carlo (2011) studies, explain that while invasives can reduce the resilience
of ecosystems by decreasing biodiversity, invasives can also increase the resilience of
ecosystems, and it is this ability to increase resilience that is largely ignored. While
Chaffin et al., (2006) attempt to describe three different ways in which invasive species
can serve to increase the resilience of an ecosystem, I recognized how these different
ways easily bleed into each other, and I could distinguish more certainly two main points
from their article.
First, invasive species can help a depleted ecosystem recharge and gain strength
by fulfilling certain functions that were in some way stressed or degraded. They offer the
example of the European green crab (Carcinus maenas) invading the waters of eastern
United States. Overfishing of predators of a native crab (Sesarma reticulatum) has
enabled Sesarma to deplete the marshes. The invasion of Carcinus contributes to
predation of Sesarma, which in turn helps restore native marshes to their previous
ecological niche (Chaffin et al., 2006). This example suggests how a native species may
be experiencing hyper-growth because a niche that prevented that species from
experiencing such growth is lost, and an invasive has the potential to fill the niche that
will prevent that hyper growth and thus return the system back to normal.
Second, an invasive species can reinforce certain beneficial functions or roles
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already present in ecosystem through a process of redundancy. Chaffin et al., (2006)
discuss the vertebrate fauna in the Florida everglades. The native vertebrate fauna
experienced a decline, while non-native vertebrate fauna is spreading. Despite these
changes, the ecosystem remains wholly unchanged. These invasions reinforce certain
functions that another native species contributes and therefore acts as an extra component
that benefits the ecosystem. Therefore, if the native species that provides this beneficial
function experiences an alteration or extinction or extirpation, the invasive species can
supplicate that species.
Ultimately it is important to consider that any effect on an ecosystem may have a
temporal delay. It takes time to see how an invasive species might affect an ecosystem, so
any immediate effects, either beneficial or harmful could potentially be temporary.

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The Holistic Framework
Chaffin et al., argue that an awareness that ecosystems function on temporal and
spatial scales is necessary in invasive species management. This level of management can
be achieved, he argues, through adaptive, decentralized governance in which
communication between public, organizations, and institutions flourishes. This author
interprets this point as a call for a more democratic science. The authors also advocate for
a shift away from management of individual species to a model based on ecosystems
(Chaffin et al., 2006). Brendon Larson similarly argues for a holistic approach in invasive
species management. He explains that we need to remember that our narrative is
interwoven with the narrative of invasive species—they are not an unnatural other and
their omnipresence has anthropogenic causes (Larson, 2005). This narrative collapses the
divide between culture and nature, and puts to rest the othering effects of military
language. Larson argues for a new metaphor to be threaded into the current invasive
species narrative, one which might foster a more holistic way of thinking. He compares
the way by which traditional Chinese healers think about diseases in terms of balance,
harmony and even encourage being kind to infections, to the way by which more
traditional Western medicine uses a militaristic metaphor to conceptualize disease. If we
were to adopt Larson’s approach, we would have to recognize the anthropogenic agency
in the prevalence of invasive species. Most remarkably, metaphors like these would offer
us a chance to reintegrate ourselves into the natural world (Larson, 2005). For example,
James Lovelock’s depiction of the Gaia hypothesis suggests that each organism and
interwoven habitat within the world create a self-regulating and resilient global
ecosystem (“Gaia Theory”, 2018). Joanna Macy employs a four-fold analytic framework
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by which we view the world: as a battlefield, as a trap, or as a lover or as the self (Macy,
2007). These examples provide alternate frameworks, alternate narratives by which we
can conceive of our self and our world.
Current frameworks focused only on niche-based comprehension of invasive
species generally ignore the ecosystem as a whole, both temporally and spatially. While
certain components of ecosystems might break down with the introduction of invasive
species, other components may be strengthened. Further, treating the ecosystem as a
holistic entity encourages the public and natural resource agencies to break out of the
obsolete way of thinking about ecosystems as rigid stable structures that must be
maintained and which crumble when change occurs, to instead perceiving them as living
entities in constant flux and growth.
Climate Change
Mark Davis argues for reconsideration of what constitutes an invasive species in
light of climate change. Although many invasives and non-natives result from
anthropogenic factors, climate change also spurs the migration of species into new areas
(Davis, 2013). There are ecological and ethical considerations that must be taken into
serious account when attempting to eradicate or prevent the introduction of these
immigrant or refugee species which flee their homes because anthropogenic forces have
made their homes inhospitable. Two years ago in May, when I was on a break from work
in downtown Olympia, I joined a small crowd gathered on a wharf to observe about half
a dozen dolphins who had entered Budd Inlet. I later spoke to a local who said this was
the first time the ‘common dolphin’ (delphinus) had been seen anywhere in the Puget
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sound in recorded history—and they had made it all the way to the southern tip of the
inland waters, far from their native regions which were getting too warm (Miller, 2016).
Davis alludes to the way by which our modern changing climate will distort the static
distinction between native and non-native and to the possibility of native species acting in
ecologically harmful ways. He cites the case of the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus
ponderosae) which is native to the United States, but has become an epidemic,
particularly in the Rocky Mountain region (Davis, 2013). Here, a native species acts
invasively, but does not fit the technical definition of invasive. Further, the beetle is being
treated, managed and referred to as an invasive species. Conversely, climate change
enables previously invasive species to become less harmful. Davis refers to the larch budmoth (Zeiraphera diniana) which has exhibited ecologically problematic outbreaks
historically except between the years 1981 and 2007, when no outbreak was recorded.
Studies suggest that warmer weather has decreased these problematic outbreaks. This
strongly suggests that invasiveness is a contingent rather than an ontological category,
subject to changes in definition as climate change continues to alter ecosystems. There is
no escaping the fact that when native species decline, the ecosystem may actually benefit
from introduced species that serve to replace that native species’ functions (Davis, 2013).
Climate change provides a remarkable opportunity to reevaluate old, potentially
outdated and obsolete models by which we structure many of our management practices.
How we determine, handle and manage invasive species must be re-evaluated and
contextualized. There are invasive species that are extremely harmful, and contribute to
biodiversity loss as they extirpate or cause the extinction of species that are not able to
adapt to the presence of non-native species. This is not debatable. Nevertheless, a
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paradigm shift is called for so that we might more logically, holistically, ethically and
appropriately consider the effects of invasive species (Weins, 2009).
There are gaps in extant literature about how different entities involved in
invasive species management communicate their work. There is also little discussion of
how metaphor and abstract and inaccessible language unite to keep a singular narrative in
power. While there is literature that touches on the militaristic metaphors in invasive
species management, there is nothing that discusses or records the use of plastic words in
invasive species management. Plastic words are largely unexamined in critique of
scientific language in general. My thesis explores and bridges these gaps, and integrates
and contextualizes these bridges within the existing invasive species management
narrative.

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Chapter 3: Methods
To answer my question: what are the foundations, implications and effects of
misleading metaphors and inaccessible language in invasive species management
nomenclature?, I chose an approach that would incorporate several different methods. My
work is transdisciplinary, in that I have incorporated “natural, social and health sciences
in a humanities context”, transcending disciplinary boundaries (Choi and Pak, 2006). In
order to respect each discipline in play, and to explore my research question from a
variety of different perspectives, my thesis has required multiple research methods. My
thesis relies on a mixed-methods approach, incorporating general and contemporary
research, qualitative and quantitative analysis of coding and surveys, and unstructured
interviews(s). I also employ humanist and literary methods of analysis, specifically
Franco Moretti’s ‘distant reading’ by which I am able to map key concepts and words
pertaining to my hypothesis within a wide variety of texts (Moretti, 2013).
For my literature review and background, I read many different texts both
historical and contemporary on the subjects of science and feminism, of classification (of
species, regions and language), on invasive species, on militaristic metaphors in general
and as used in invasive species management, on metaphors in general and as they are
used in science, on plastic words and other forms of scientific language. I have read
various texts that expose the effects of this language in a variety of scientific disciplines
to frame, bias and otherwise persuade of a specific opinion. These texts included
interviews, non-fiction and fiction texts, essays, speeches, and public documents. I used
Atlas.ti to find examples and frequency of plastic words and metaphoric terminology
used in invasive species documents and in public articles. I created a purposive survey of
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25 individuals with varying degrees of familiarity with the type of language that is used
in science writings. This survey asked participants what they think is being said in a
portion of a particular invasive species document. I also used Mechanical Turk to survey
100+ individuals, asking the same questions. I interviewed an individual whose job is to
“translate” scientific documents into articles that are more accessible. After collecting
and learning from this data, I performed a series of my own original translations of the
document I gave to survey participants, in order to rephrase and eliminate plastic words,
scientific jargon and/or militant metaphors. I explored what meaning is lost and gained in
this translation.
Invasive Species Management Documents
The key documents I focused on were works created for the public—easily
accessed on the National Invasive Species Information Center website. The documents I
chose include: Executive Order (E.O.) 13112 – Invasive Species (1999), Five-Year
Review of Executive Order (E.O.) 13112 on Invasive Species (2005), Invasive Species
Definition Clarification and Guidance White Paper (2006), The Standard Operating
Procedures (SOP) for the Rapid Screening of Species’ Risk of Establishment and Impact
in the United States (2016), Executive Order 13751 Safeguarding the Nation from the
Impacts of Invasive Species (2016), and the Management Plan Report Card (2017). I also
included two documents from the Federal Trade Commission website, to provide a
mirrored comparison within another discipline. The documents I chose for an economic
perspective are: A Brief Overview of the Federal Trade Commission's Investigative and

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Law Enforcement Authority (2008) and Federal Trade Commission Draft Strategic Plan
(2017).
What follows are summaries of the point and purpose of each document:
Executive Order 13112 – Invasive Species (1999)
In 1999, the president of the United States of America created, in collaboration,
Executive Order 13112 to bring to light and address how non-native species upset certain
perceived harmonies between human, plant, animal, and land. This document begins by
defining terms that will be used, establishes the Invasive Species Council (ISC) and
explains its duties, and requests the first National Invasive Species Management Plan
(NISMP) which will be continually reviewed henceforth, and ends by explaining the
purpose of this Executive Order and revoking previous incompatible Executive Orders
(See Appendix 3).
Five-Year Review of Executive Order 13112 on Invasive Species (2005)
This document is released every five years and is a review of the 1999 Executive
Order (EO) 13112. This document assesses how effective the EO is and whether or not it
should be revised. It summarizes EO 13112, explains and defines invasive species as they
are perceived today, and examines how well the EO 13112 holds up. It examines the
particular roles both the Invasive Species Advisory Committee (ISAC) and the NISC
have, budgets, and various prevention measures. The conclusion of this report suggests
that the NISC is working well to meet certain goals outlined in the EO 13112, and that in
future the NISC will be able to address invasive species more effectively, despite

85

challenges in interagency collaboration. It argues that Executive Order 13112 should be
maintained (See Appendix 4).
Invasive Species Definition Clarification and Guidance White Paper (2006)
This document defines invasive species while acknowledging the difficulty of
defining invasive species. It explains that “harm” is subjective and certain people may
find a species harmful while other people may find that species beneficial. It suggests
negative effects shall outweigh beneficial effects of a non-native species to deem it
invasive. It discusses what is meant by native and non-native, how federal non-native
species are more often potentially invasive than domestic non-native species, how a
certain region may have negative effects from a non-native species while another, nearby
region may have beneficial effects, and describes the various types of harm invasive
species can inflict on: the environment, human health, natural resources, and recreational
avenues (See Appendix 5).
The Standard Operating Procedures for the Rapid Screening of Species’ Risk of
Establishment and Impact in the United States (2016)
This document describes a streamlined Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to
screen the potential risk of a non-native species. This procedure, if done properly, helps
determine if a species can be labeled as “invasive” which would warrant regulatory
action such as preventative measures or attempted eradication of that species. It describes
who is best fit to perform these procedures, and on what sorts of species. It defines
invasive species, and explains the difficulty in defining invasive species. It describes the
purpose of the paper as to be guidelines for a procedure that can be replicated. It
discusses difficulties in streamlining such a process. It describes the appropriate format
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by which a successfully enacted analysis should adhere to, including information on:
nativity of species, ecological and biological information, impacts of introduction, global
distribution, United States distribution, climate matching, certainty of assessment, risk
assessment, and references. It offers an example of a successfully conducted risk
assessment procedure as a template (See Appendix 6).
Executive Order 13751 Safeguarding the Nation from the Impacts of Invasive Species
(2016)
This document from 2016 amends the Executive Order 13112, by expanding the
NISC, clarifying NISC duties, reviewing and clarifying subjective invasive species
definitions, and incorporates new technologies, changing climates, and other
contemporary divergences from EO 13112. It defines terms used in the document,
describes federal agency duties, assesses new emerging priorities and makes various
amendments to EO 13112 (See Appendix 7).
Management Plan Report Card (2017)
This is a brief outline of the current plan for handling invasive species and their
effects on humans, regions, economies (See Appendix 8).
A Brief Overview of the Federal Trade Commission's Investigative and Law
Enforcement Authority (2008)
This document explores the regulations, expectations, roles and investigative
procedures of the law enforcement branch that deals with issues within the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC). It begins by describing elements of the FTC act, then elaborates on
how to handle a variety of unfair business practices that harm consumers (See Appendix
9).
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Federal Trade Commission Draft Strategic Plan (2017)
This is a detailed outline of a three-part plan for 1) protecting consumers against
unfair business practices, 2) promoting competition in the marketplace, and 3) generally
strengthening the FTC’s reach and scope through strategic dissemination of information
(See Appendix 10).
Data Analysis
I coded these documents using the software program Atlas.ti. In my coding
process, I looked specifically for the frequency of inaccessible language in the form of
Poersken’s plastic words. I created codes for the following words:
Table 2 Plastic Words list
Plastic Words
accomplishment
basic needs
capitalization
care
center
communication
consumption
contact
decision
development
education
energy
exchange
factor
function
future
growth
health
identity
information
living standard
management
modernization
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model
partner
planning
problem
process
production
productivity
progress
project
quality
raw material
relationship
resource
role
service
sexuality
solution
strategy
structure
substance
system
value
work
workplace
Language may be likened to an organism that changes over time. Language is
alive. Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) has written, “The meaning of a
word is its use in the language” (Wittgenstein, 1958, p. 14). Meaning does not precede
use. With changing usage and context, certain words can become more plastic while
formerly plastic words can lose their plasticity. Uwe Poersken admits that this list is not
comprehensive, and certain words are questionable. But there is an aura around them, a
taste of them, and they have a certain feel that may not be provable scientifically, but
recognizable. In my analysis I focused on the list of plastic words discovered by Uwe
Poersken, but allowed for variations of those words, such as present and past participle.
For example, I looked for develop, but allowed for developing, developed and
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development. While using these criteria to code, I found several other variations of the
words I had chosen. The coding software picked up on these variants in the documents
and responses I scanned:
Center: Human-centered, center-point
Identity: president, presidential
Produce: reproduction
Solution: resolution
Structure: infrastructure
Substance: substantial, substantive
System: ecosystem
Value: evaluate
Work: network, artwork, framework, working, workings, workshops, and paperwork
I deleted these occurrences because I did not have time to put them through
Poersken’s plastic words test of 30 criteria. I focused on prominence of extant plastic
words. To see the types of words used most frequently in these documents, I created
word clouds in Atlas.ti for each document. In word clouds, larger words appeared more
frequently while smaller words appeared less frequently. To generate most frequently
used words, the word cloud algorithm eliminates a list of extremely common words, like
certain prepositions. Because each document had a different number of frequently used
words, I created a threshold. The words which appear in the following word clouds
appear at least 5% of the most frequently used words per document.

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Goal
I chose these documents in particular because my question is about how science
uses rhetorical and inaccessible language to tell its story to the public. These documents
also cover a range of years without being, in my opinion, too far outdated. The main
point of this coding was to find how often invasive species management relied on
inaccessible language on their website and in their key documents.
Surveys
My survey was approved by the Evergreen State College Human Subjects Review
Board to ensure that the questions offered no preventable risk to participants. The
document I had participants read and respond to is a portion of a larger document entitled
Invasive Species Definition Clarification and Guidance White Paper (2006). The portion
I chose was the preamble, which introduces the document and intentions of the document
which are essentially to 1) recognize the difficulty of defining invasive species and 2)
define invasive species after this recognition of difficulty to define (See Appendix 11 and
12).
I surveyed a variety of people with differing degrees of familiarity with how
invasive species are talked about. My survey asks participants to read a key document,
and respond to a selection of questions that refer to the words used and general readdifficulty of that document. The survey consisted of nine questions, mostly short answer
responses. I chose short answer responses as opposed to multiple choice answers, because
I wanted my participants to be able to respond in a way that most reflected their opinions
and beliefs. I wanted their responses to be written in their own words, not mine.

91

I chose a small sample of around 25 individuals, because I wanted to analyze in
more depth their anecdotal responses. This was a purposive survey, in which I actively
sought out a variety of people with a range of degrees of familiarity with how invasive
species are talked about. For my survey, I emailed specific members of various groups,
including the National Institute of Health (NIH), first year Masters in Environmental
Studies as well as humanities undergraduate students at the Evergreen State College,
members of a naturalist group in Washington D.C., people who work on environmental
impact and risk communication, those who work in invasive species management,
employees who analyze legal documents regarding the housing crisis of 2009, Bon
Appétit magazine employees, Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) employees, ICF
employees, and individuals who had previously been in the military. I have personal
affiliation with the individuals I emailed, and asked these individuals to email the actual
participants with whom I had no or minimal personal affiliation. This was done in order
to minimize bias, though there remains potential for bias because I have personal
affiliations with the individuals I emailed. Because I wanted to minimize my personal
contact with the participants, I do not know how many people received my email, so I am
unaware of the response rate. These participants should have been unaware of the specific
nature of my research project.
I also used the survey software program Mechanical Turk to compile a larger
random pool of 100+ responses. Mechanical Turk participants have a monetary incentive
to respond to surveys. I was interested in comparing Mechanical Turk results to
Purposive Survey results, analyzing for comparable patterns in responses, for frequency
of plastic words as well as any noticeable effects of plastic words in responses, and
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contrasting which sections and words were easiest to understand and which were most
difficult for each cohort.
Data Analysis
To analyze the data, I compiled from my surveys, I used Atlas.ti to code
responses, looking for patterns and themes in how readable the document was for
participants. I generated word clouds of most frequently used words in responses in order
to analyze more efficiently. The word clouds I generated do not have the same threshold
as the word clouds I generated for the invasive species management documents.
Goal
My goal was to 1) discover which areas of the document were most difficult and
which were easiest to understand, 2) discover which words were most difficult and which
were easiest to understand, 3) discover how participants define invasive species after
reading this document, and 4) provide participants the space and opportunity to reply
honestly and in a way that most reflects their understanding and beliefs. This document
contained a percentage of plastic words, and I was curious if these plastic words would
come up in the survey responses. Because plastic words are both difficult to pinpoint a
single definition, but seem familiar, I was curious if plastic words would come in both
categories of easy to understand and difficult to understand. Ultimately, however, my
concern is of comprehension, and I wanted to find out how language use may have
impeded comprehension of this document designed for clarification.
Semi-structured Interview

93

I also chose to pursue an informal interview with someone who has worked in
science writing and communication as their profession. This semi-structured interview
began with a series of central and preliminary questions, but enabled new questions to
form in response to responses to the preliminary questions. Abandoning the constraint of
pre-established questions with expected answers, I opted for a semi-structured interview
for the same reason I chose a survey with a majority of anecdotal responses—to allow the
participant to respond in a way that is more free and true to their perspective or ideas.
This interview consisted of an email thread in which I asked various questions about their
work, and trends they saw in their process of making scientific findings available to the
public (See Appendix 13).
Data Analysis
Rather than code for patterns or create word clouds which are more efficient and
appropriate for more numerous responses or larger texts, like the surveys and documents,
I spent time with each answer and sought out overarching patterns that fit within my
thesis as a whole. Because this component of my data analysis was just one person, I was
able to tackle each response thoroughly and carefully.
Goal
I sought this perspective from the interview, because I wanted to know what
regulations and standards existed to transform data and numbers into concepts that the
public could interpret as facts. I also wanted to know what it was like to translate
documents into the colloquial in general. This interview also prepared me for my own
original translation.
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Original Translation
After collecting this moderately diverse data, I also created my own translation of
the document that I gave to survey participants to read. In the translation, I took what I
learned from my research, from my data collections, surveys, and my informal interviews
and tried to eliminate jargon, plastic words, and metaphor from a key invasive species
text. I provided each step of this process to show what is lost and what is gained in this
translation. If this project is to be replicated, one should undertake this activity after all
other data is collected and analyzed.
Goal
I wanted to know what it is like to eliminate plastic words, jargon and metaphor
from the discourse of invasive species management.

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Chapter 4: Results & Analysis.
My research question is many-layered and requires multiple modes of data
extraction and analysis to engage with. My question is not necessarily one that can be
definitively answered. Rather, I approach it as an active and ongoing engagement or
conversation. In order to continue this conversation, I have employed a variety of
methods of data collection and analysis, quantitative, qualitative and humanist. The
following data results explore how often plastic words occur in seminal invasive species
texts (and therefore how much these texts rely on plastic words), and how easy or
difficult it is for a variety of respondents to understand and read a certain seminal
invasive species text, and why. I interpret from these data and results how words like
plastic words can infect a document and what the consequences of this infection are.
Invasive Species Documents
Figure 5 shows the frequency of Poersken’s plastic words in these 6 invasive
species documents. I eliminated the plastic words that occurred less than ten times.

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Figure 6 Frequency of Plastic Words in Invasive Species Documents

250
200
150
100
50
0
information
management
planning
work
development
process
problem
system
identity
health
service
progress
resource
value
decision
quality
structure
production
communication
education
project
model
role
accomplishment
partner
functional
center
growth
contact
exchange
relationship

Number of Occurences

Frequency of Plastic Words in Invasive Species Documents

Plastic Words

31 of the 46, or 67%, of plastic words occurred more than 10 times. 13 of the 46 plastic
words occur more than 50 times. As Figure 5 shows, the most frequently occurring
plastic words are “information”, “management”, and “planning”. Figure 5 shows that
plastic words have a significant presence in these documents, which will be further
illustrated in the following Figures.

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Figure 7 Percentage of Plastic Words in Invasive Species Document

Percentage of Plastic Words

Percentage of Plastic Words in Invasive Species Documents
10%
9%
8%
7%
6%
5%
4%
3%
2%
1%
0%

Management Five Year Review Executive Order Executive Order
Plan Report
of Executive
13112
13751
Card
Order 13112

ERSS-SOP

Clarification
Guidance White
Paper

Invasive Species ManagementDocuments

Figure 6 depicts percentage of plastic words in each invasive species document—what
percentage of the document is made up of plastic words. The Management Plan Report
Card clearly has the highest proportion of plastic words. The Management Plan Report
Card, which has two plastic words in the title alone and is a comparably short document
of three pages. It functions as a brief outline of how to control invasive for invasive
species. The prominence of plastic words in this particular document suggest that
invasive species management relies on as few words as possible to communicate quickly
a plan for course of action but we must ask, does clarity and comprehension get lost in
this brevity?
For comparison, I found two comparable documents in the discipline of
economics for which I conducted an analysis to determine propensity of plastic words.
Figure 7 depicts this propensity (See Appendix 9 and 10 for Full Documents). More

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plastic words can be found in the Federal Trade Commission Draft Strategic Plan (2017)
than in A Brief Overview of Federal Trade Commission’s Investigative Law
Enforcement Authority, but percentage of plastic words in these documents is
comparable to percentages of plastic words in invasive species management documents.
Figure 8 Percentage of Plastic Words in Federal Trade Commission Documents

Percentage of Plastic Words

Percentage of Plastic Words in Federal Trade Commission
Documents
9%
8%
7%
6%
5%
4%
3%
2%
1%
0%

Federal Trade Commission Draft Strategic Plan
2018

A Brief Overview of the Federal Trade
Commission's Investigative And Law Enforcement
Authority

Federal Trade Commission Documents

Most Frequently Used Words Depicted in Word Clouds
To see the types of words used most frequently in these documents, I created a
word cloud in Atlas.ti for each document. Limits to word clouds are described in my
Methods section. I added to the afore mentioned list of eliminated words several letters
and punctuation marks that would disrupt the word cloud and provide skewed data.

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Figure 9: Word Cloud for E.O. 13112

100

Figure 10 Word Cloud for ERSS-SOP

101

Figure 11 Word Cloud for Clarification Guidance White Paper Document

102

Figure 12 Word Cloud for Management Plan Report Card

103

Figure 13 Word Cloud for E.O. 13751

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Figure 14 Word Cloud for Five-Year Review of E.O. 13112
Table 3 provides the number of word clouds (out of the six word clouds) a given
plastic word appears.
Table 3 Frequency of plastic words in the word clouds for the six documents displayed in
Figures 8-13
Plastic Words
Issue
Problem
Services
Strategy
Communication
Value
Develop
Research
Plan
Progress
Health

Frequency of Occurrence
in Word Clouds
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
2
3
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Plastic Words
Process
Information
Management
Resource

Frequency of Occurrence
in Word Clouds
3
4
5
5

Each document’s word cloud has at least three plastic words and at most eight,
meaning plastic words were frequently used in each document. These word clouds further
suggest that these invasive species documents do rely on plastic words to a significant
degree to explain invasive species and invasive species management to the public.
Surveys
The surveys were designed to reveal any effects of plastic words in read-difficulty
of invasive species documents. Read-difficulty here means how easy or difficult it was to
read and comprehend the text. I read the survey responses, seeking out patterns within
responses. I noticed in Mechanical Turk Survey Cohort, that there were a number of
inauthentic responses that were either gibberish, irrelevant, or word-for-word copies of
another response. Both the Mechanical Turk Survey Cohort and Purposive Survey Cohort
had incentive to complete the survey. While no Purposive Survey Cohort respondent
repeated the survey for an extra reward, I did have to eliminate 25% of Mechanical Turk
Cohort’s responses because monetary incentive seemed to drive individuals to take the
survey multiple times.
I categorized the preamble into sections where teal represents a section dealing
with definitions of invasive species, purple refers to difficulty with defining invasive
species, dark green refers to a specific example, light green refers to purpose and
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intended consequence of the paper, and the two light brown sections are, I think, one
sentence summaries of the general purpose of the paper. Each of these sections deal with
an overarching theme of definition. This paper is intended to define invasive species,
while considering how it is hard to define invasive species.
The sections in yellow, light blue and grey do not deal with the overarching theme
of definition. The yellow section is mostly defined acronyms, and references to other
documents not present. The light blue section refers to revisions of the action plan that
rely on comments from the public. The grey section refers to how a non-native species
must first undergo a risk/benefit analysis to be subject to regulatory action (ie:
eradication, or preventative measures) as an invasive species. Table 4 relays what
percentage each sections takes up of the preamble.
Preamble: Executive Order 13112 – defines an invasive species as “an alien
species whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental
harm or harm to human health.” In the Executive Summary of the National
Invasive Species Management Plan (NISMP) the term invasive species is further
clarified and defined as “a species that is non-native to the ecosystem under
consideration and whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or
environmental harm or harm to human health.” To provide guidance for the
development and implementation of the NISMP, the National Invasive Species
Council (NISC) and the Invasive Species Advisory Committee (ISAC) adopted a
set of principles outlined in Appendix 6 of the NISMP. Guiding Principle #1
provides additional context for defining the term invasive species and states
“many alien species are non-invasive and support human livelihoods or a
preferred quality of life.” However, some alien species (non-native will be used in
this white paper because it is more descriptive than alien), for example West Nile
virus, are considered invasive and undesirable by virtually everyone. Other nonnative species are not as easily characterized. For example, some nonnative
species are considered harmful, and therefore, invasive by some sectors of our
society while others consider them beneficial. This discontinuity is reflective of
the different value systems operating in our free society, and contributes to the
complexity of defining the term invasive species. NISC is engaged in evaluating
and updating the 2001 NISMP and is developing comments for a revised action
plan as required by the EO 13112. While there have been numerous attempts to
clarify the term invasive species, there continues to be uncertainty concerning the
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use and perceived meaning of the term, and consequently over the prospective
scope of actions proposed in the NISMP. Options related to private property use,
pet ownership, agriculture, horticulture, and aquaculture enterprises may be
affected depending upon the definition, use, and policy implications of the term.
In particular, the desire to consider a non-native species as ‘invasive’ may trigger
a risk/benefit assessment process to determine whether regulatory action is
warranted. All these uncertainties have stood and could continue to stand in the
way of progress in actions and policy development to prevent new invasions and
manage existing invasive species. While it is not the purpose of this white paper
to define a risk/benefit assessment process, development of such a process must
be open and efficient to minimize the uncertainties. This white paper is intended
to provide a non-regulatory policy interpretation of the term invasive species by
identifying what is meant, and just as important, what is not meant by the term.
ISAC recognizes that biological and ecological definitions will not precisely
apply to regulatory definitions. We believe, however, that our clarification will
apply to all taxa of invasive species in all habitats and furthermore, our
explanation will be functional and acceptable to most stakeholders. ISAC simply
wants to clarify what is meant and what is not meant by the term invasive species
in the technical sense and to provide insight into those areas where societal
judgments will be necessary to implement effective public policy. The utility of
our clarification should be in education, conflict resolution, and efficiency in the
planning, prevention, control/eradication, and management of invasive species
(ISAC, 2016).

Table 4 Preamble's Section Percentages

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Section Genre

Percentage of 542 Words

Define

20%

Difficulty

30%

Example

5%

Purpose-General

15%

Purpose-Summary

13%

Acronyms

7%

Misc1

5%

Misc2

4%

Worth noting in Table 4 is that sections that deal with defining invasive species,
and sections that deal with difficulty of defining invasive species account for exactly half
of this preamble.

Figure 15 Word Cloud for Preamble to Clarification Guidance Document
This word cloud describes most frequently used words in the preamble. In this
word cloud, note that five plastic words occur: development, process, plan, health and
management. I use this word cloud and the above chart as comparison for some of the
following survey questions.

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Question 1. On a scale of 1-10 where 1 stands for not very familiar and 10 stands for
very familiar, how familiar are you with the way invasive species are talked about?
Purposive Survey Cohort
For the Purposive Survey Cohort, there was a range of 4-10 for how familiar
participants were with how invasive species are talked about. On average, participants
had a familiarity of 8.12, while a level of 8 was the most repeated level of familiarity.
Mechanical Turk Cohort
Mechanical Turk Survey Cohort had a wide range of 1-10 for how familiar they
were with how invasive species are talked about. On average, participants had a 5.58
level of familiarity, and 8 was the most repeated level of familiarity.
Comparing the average level of familiarity between the two groups, these
numbers appear to suggest that the Purposive Survey Cohort was more educated and
cognizant of the kind of academic language in the preamble, while the Mechanical Turk
Survey Cohort was less educated. The Mechanical Turk Survey Cohort had a wider range
of familiarity than did the Mechanical Turk Survey Cohort.
I performed a 2 tailed t-test allowing for unequal variances and got a p-value of
.000099 which is less than .05 suggesting a statistical significance. This indicates that
there is a strong difference of familiarity with invasive species language between the two
cohorts.

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Question 2. On a scale of 1-10 where 1 stands for very easy and 10 stands for very
difficult, how easy or difficult was it for you to read and understand this document?
Purposive Survey Cohort
The range of read-difficulty for the Purposive Survey Cohort was 1-9. On
average, participants found the document a level of 5.54 for read-difficulty meaning it
was neither too difficult nor too easy to understand, while most repeated level of readdifficulty was 8, meaning it was more difficult to understand. While many people
responded to the former question with an affirmation that suggested they were very
familiar with how invasive species were talked about, many respondents had
considerable, above average difficulty reading and understanding the document.
Unfortunately, I believe some of my respondents did not read these first two questions
carefully enough, and were confused about which extremes 1 and 10 referred to. For
example, one participant said they were 10/10 very familiar with how invasive species
were talked about but put that the document was 9/10 very difficult to understand. Nine
participants said they were familiar to very familiar (6-10) with how invasive species are
talked about but also said the document was difficult to very difficult (6-10) to
understand. These seem like discrepancies to me, but may also reflect how difficult to
read the document was, despite familiarity.
Mechanical Turk Cohort
Mechanical Turk Cohort Participants responded with a range of 1-10 with an
average of 6.77 and a mode of 8. Participants expressed similar discrepancies between
responses for the first two questions of knowing about how invasive species are talked
about and comprehension of document. Participant 1 said they had an 8/10 level of
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familiarity and an 8/10 level of difficulty. Participant 2 said they had a 2/10 level of
familiarity and 3/10 level of difficulty difficulty. Participant 59 said they had a 4/10 level
of difficulty but responded to question 8— “Explain what you think is being said in this
document?”—with “I don’t know at all”.
The following Figures, Figure 15 and Figure 16 depict correlation between readdifficulty and familiarity for the Purposive Survey Cohort and the Mechanical Turk
Survey Cohort.
Figure 16 Purposive Survey Correlation

Purposive Survey Correleation
10
9
8

Readability

7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0

0

2

4

6

Familiarity

112

8

10

12

Figure 17 Mechanical Turk Survey Correlation

Mechanical Turk Survey Correlation
12

Readability

10
8
6
4
2
0

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Familiarity

For the Purposive Survey Cohort, there was a negative correlation between readdifficulty and familiarity, which suggests the more familiar with the way species are
spoken of, the more readable the document was, and for the Mechanical Turk Survey
Cohort, there was no correlation between read-difficulty and familiarity. The anticipated
correlation—that the more familiar participants are with how invasive species are talked
about, the more readable the preamble will be for participants—is extant in the Purposive
Survey Cohort, but not in Mechanical Turk Survey Cohort.
I performed a 2 tailed t-test allowing for unequal variances for both cohorts and
got a p-value of .042 which is less than .05 suggesting statistical significance. This
indicates that there is a strong difference of read-difficulty for the invasive species
document between both cohorts.
Question 3. Which sections or sentences in this document are easiest to understand?
Copy and paste portions here.
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The following Table, Table 5, shows what percentage of survey responses
includes a portion of the document that corresponded with the sections I have defined.
Table 5 Easiest Section Genre to understand by percentage in responses
Section Genre

Percentage of
Subjects

Percentage of
Subjects

Purposive Survey

Mechanical Turk

(N =24)

(N=79)

Define

42%

54%

Difficulty

46%

35%

Example

38%

14%

Purpose-General

33%

15%

Purpose-Summary

29%

15%

Acronyms

8%

5%

Misc1

8%

1%

Misc2

4%

6%

There were a divergent range of responses for this question. Of the Purposive Survey
Cohort, two participants responded that “the entirety” or “all” of the document was easy
to understand, while one participant responded that “The whole document was very
difficult to digest. I had to read it through at least 5 times”. For both Purposive Survey
participants and Mechanical Turk participants, sections that dealt with definitions and
sections that dealt with difficulty of definitions were generally most easy to understand.
Because both of these section genres combine to make up half the preamble, it would
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logically follow that many responses would include these sections. However, 36% of
Purposive Survey Cohort responses and 14% of Mechanical Turk Survey Cohort
responses included sections with an example as easier to understand. One participant in
the Purposive Survey Cohort simply stated: “Sections that provide specific examples” as
sections that were easiest to understand. Given that the section which includes an
example made up only 5% of the entire document, it seems that ease of comprehension is
reinforced through examples or stories. In general, however, Purposive Survey Cohort
responses and Mechanical Turk Survey Cohort responses did not have much more
overlap of what sections participants found easiest to understand.
Question 4. Which sections or sentences of this document are most difficult to
understand? Copy and paste portions here.
The following Table, Table 6 shows what percentage of survey responses includes
a portion of the document that corresponded with the sections I have defined.
Table 6 Most difficult Section Genre to understand by percentage in responses
Section Genre

Percentage of
Subjects

Percentage of
Subjects

Purposive Survey

Mechanical Turk

(N =24)

(N=79)

Define

33%

10%

Difficulty

58%

39%

Example

21%

3%

Purpose-General

29%

27%

Purpose-Summary

8%

17%

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Section Genre

Percentage of
Subjects

Percentage of
Subjects

Purposive Survey

Mechanical Turk

(N =24)

(N=79)

Acronyms

25%

11%

Misc1

13%

28%

Misc2

25%

8%

In responses to this question, two Purposive Survey Cohort participants said “N/A” and
one participant said that they “didn’t find anything particularly difficult to understand”.
In the Purposive Survey Cohort, 58% of responses included a section that discussed the
difficulties in defining, which is interesting, because 46% of responses from the same
cohort included difficulties in defining sections as easy to understand. Similarly, in the
Purposive Survey Cohort, the next highest number of responses, 33%, answered that
sections dealing with definition were difficult to understand, but 42% of Purposive
Survey Cohort responses also suggested that this section easier to understand. A similar
unexpected discrepancy occurred in Mechanical Turk Survey Cohort responses. The
section that dealt with difficulties in defining occurred in 39% of responses arguing that it
was hard to understand, but 35% of responses suggested these sections were easier to
understand. In general, responses for what sections were most difficult to understand
differed greatly between Purposive Survey Cohort responses and Mechanical Turk
Cohort responses, and for both Cohorts, certain sections were considered both easy and
difficult to understand.

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Question 5. List 3 to 5 words or phrases used in this document that are easier to
understand or otherwise straight-forward. (You may choose words or phrases from
your answer to question number 3).
I generated word clouds from participant responses. They do not follow the same
threshold as word clouds for invasive species documents—instead I allow for all
frequently used word to appear with the exception of the excluded word list.

Figure 18 Word Cloud for Purposive Survey Cohort Easiest Words

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Figure 19 Word Cloud for Mechanical Turk Cohort Easiest Words
Figure 15 includes two plastic words: health and value. Figure 16 includes five plastic
words: health, education, development, management and value. This is unsurprising
because a characteristic of plastic words is that they are familiar to most people and most
people have an idea of what they mean. These word clouds look similar; there is overlap
of easiest words to understand between the two groups.

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Question 6. List 3 to 5 words or phrases used in the document that are more difficult to
understand or otherwise confusing. (You may choose words or phrases from your
answer to question number 4).

Figure 20 Word Cloud for Purposive Survey Cohort Hardest Words

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Figure 21 Word Cloud for Mechanical Turk Cohort Hardest Words
For both the Purposive Survey Cohort and the Mechanical Turk Cohort, many of the
responses included acronyms and references to papers that were not clearly defined in
this document as being a source of confusion. Risk/Benefit appeared multiple times, as
did taxa. Other phrases that seemed most difficult to comprehend included: development,
implementation, non-regulatory policy interpretation, and prospective scope. One
response in the Purposive Survey Cohort in particular grabbed my attention. This
participant wrote that “none of the vocabulary words were very difficult for me to
understand, but these could possibly have multiple contexts/meanings” 2. The words this
participant was confused about were ones whose meanings were variable. This is a clear

2

This response came after I performed the coding for questions 1-4 and so could not be included in that
data analysis.

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characteristic of plastic words, and yet this participant did not choose any plastic words
as being difficult to understand. The list of words they chose as difficult to understand
were “risk/benefit assessment, regulatory, invasive”. Easiest and hardest word clouds for
the Purposive Survey Cohort look very similar. Invasive species is both easy and hard to
understand for both the Purposive Survey Cohort and the Mechanical Turk Survey
Cohort.
Question 7. Define what you think the words or phrases you chose for question 6
mean.
For both Purposive Survey Cohort and the Mechanical Turk Survey Cohort, there
were many responses that indicated doubt and confusion, and several responses that
seemed to be questioning the narrative of the document. When I say “questioning the
narrative” I mean that these responses express critical opinions about the document, its
language or the authors or scientists who wrote the document.
Purposive Survey Cohort
Confusion
Participants largely formed clear definitions for the words they were confused
about, but sometimes while acknowledging their doubt. The patterns I’ve noticed in
responses include characters or words that suggest confusion or uncertainty, such as “?”,
“I think” “a guess”, etc. 33% of participants expressed doubt and confusion.
Participant 1 wrote: “took me a second”, and “a guess”. Participant 4 defined two
words but for the third responded with a question mark “?”. Participant 5 acknowledged
confusion in the document. Participant 6, in response to confusion regarding the term
“risk/benefit”, wrote “but for whom? and what?” and also included a question mark “?”
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after a definition they created for “regulatory action”. Participant 10 wrote “I imagine”
and “I think?” while explaining confusing words. Participant 11 included a question mark
“?” and “it looks like” in an explanation. Participant 19 wrote “I do not know”.
Participant 20 said the text was unclear.
Questioning the Narrative
The following responses included opinion about the document’s clarity, in
addition to definitions. Participant 5’s response explains that while the words were not
difficult to understand, the structure of the document and overuse of passive voice made
it difficult to read the document. Participant 6’s response “but for whom? and what?”
suggests, I think, a critical curiosity of who gets to define risks and benefits. Participant
20 similarly explained their perspective on where the confusion in this document might
be. They focused on these sentences as being the most unclear:
The utility of our clarification should be in education, conflict resolution, and
efficiency in the planning, prevention, control/eradication, and management of
invasive species. This white paper is intended to provide a non-regulatory policy
interpretation of the term invasive species by identifying what is meant, and just
as important, what is not meant by the term. ISAC recognizes that biological and
ecological definitions will not precisely apply to regulatory definitions.

They argued that while the sentence may be straightforward, nuances and implications
are unclear. They wrote that: “there is no explanation as to what sources that clarification
will be based on” and that “the word ‘interpretation’ is disconcerting”.
Participant 17 considered the difficulty in defining the term invasive was simply a
loophole created by scientists to avoid having to act in a determinable way.

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Mechanical Turk Cohort
Confusion
Patterns I noticed from the Mechanical Turk Cohort responses again included
general confusion and self-doubt when trying to define confusing terminology or
sections. Twenty-nine responses, or 36%, suggest confusion. General indications of
confusion include “I think”, “I don’t know” or “I do not know”, “Not sure”, “No idea”,
“Not exactly sure”, “not sure”, “not familiar”, “may be”, “guess”, “not familiar” or “?”.
Participant 10 wrote: “looks like” and participant 20 wrote “sounds like” when trying to
explain a certain definition. Participant 11 wrote “maybe”. Participant 14 wrote flat out “I
don’t even know!”, referring to taxa, stakeholders and ISAC. Participants 14, 16, 22, 24,
30, 37, 40, 61, wrote variations of “I have no idea”. Participant 19, 46, 67, 69 and 71
included a question mark “?” following the definitions they formed. Participant 46 also
mentioned the document “could have been explained better” In response to risk/benefit,
participant 21 wrote that they didn’t know “what they mean in this context/what they
entail”. Participant 34 wrote they were unsure what a certain regulation was for.
Participant 36 included the phrase “probably means”. Three participants (26, 44 and 75)
wrote that the words used were jargon, that sentences were confusing, or that they
weren’t grasping how the words were being used in this context. Participant 38 explained
that unfamiliar terms were hard to remember while reading. Participant 39 said they
didn’t understand something in their explanation. Participant 47 wrote “I think”.
Participants 55 and 56 wrote they were just too unfamiliar with the terms to understand
the document clearly. Participant 58 wrote “I do not know”. Participant 76 wrote that the
words had shallow meanings.
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Questioning the Narrative
Commentaries on and critique of the document also appeared in responses.
Participant 46 said that the document could have been explained better. Participant 20
wrote that “it sounds like obscure bureaucratic paperwork” and that they were familiar at
least with that type of jargon because they work for the United States Postal Service.
Participant 26 explained that the words they chose as confusing were “a bunch of jargon”
which they were “unfamiliar with”, and which seemed “too technical”. The words they
chose include: “Appendix, implementation, EO, advisory”. Participant 25 chose “…is
intended to provide a non-regulatory policy interpretation of the term invasive species” as
one of the most confusing phrases and wrote that it meant that “the objective is to provide
an unofficial definition of “invasive species” but was confused why an unofficial
definition would be useful. Participant 39 didn’t understand what preferred quality of life
referred to—specifically whose gets to decide what the preferred quality of life is.
Participant 54 explained that they knew what the words meant individually, but that these
words were picked specifically to prevent a “clear and direct point does not need to be
made”. They, too, questioned who gets decide what the “most ‘efficient’ way to come to
a conclusion” and they wondered exactly “whose ‘uncertainties’ about the process need
to be minimized?”

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Aliens
Some participants, for whom English may not be first language, literally thought
the word “alien” referred to extra-terrestrials, and believed this document meant that
invasive species were from outer space. This becomes clearer in further responses.
Participant 71, for example interpreted from the document that “aliens are human
friends” and can “offer us a better life”, concluding with a question mark “?”. Participant
7 believed that “risk assessment of aliens will be done”.
Question 8. Briefly summarize what you think is being said in this paragraph.
Purposive Survey Cohort
Participants largely agreed that the paper was about difficulties in defining
invasive species, and that the document is designed for clarification. The responses were
summaries for the most part, but several respondents described anecdotally issues they
had with the paper or offered suggestions for improvement.
Questioning the Narrative
Participant 2, following up their summary, writes that “it’s not clear what they are
proposing, why a change is needed, or what value the white paper offers to the reader”.
Participant 11 added to their summary that “many of the words that were easy to
understand… became more difficult to understand when they were all used in the same
sentence, or used interchangeably”. Participant 13 included this scathing criticism, that
the document was “long, poorly constructed and with run-on sentences” before
summarizing. Participant 23 criticized this summary as human centric – criticizing that

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invasiveness is determined partly on scientific data and partly on society’s “fickle
whims”.
Mechanical Turk Cohort
Most participants responded with believing that the document is about trying to
clarify the term invasive species.
Confusion
There were three responses, from participants 50, 59 and 61 who used phrases
synonymous to “I don’t know”, “I have no clue at all”, “I can’t explain it”. There were
words suggesting self-doubt “I think” or “I believe” from participants 10 and 19.
Participant 30 interpreted the document that invasive species should be protected.
Aliens
There were again several responses referring to extra-terrestrials. Participant 7, for
example, wrote “it says that invasive species are the aliens who attack our land or
property and claim as their own. they pose threat economically and environmentally”.
Participant 44 wrote about “THE FUTURE OF WORLD WHEN ALIENS WOULD
INVADE AND WHAT HAPPENS TO THIS WORLD”, while participant 47
summarized the document as claiming “there are aliens possibly on earth they may be
harmless”. Participant 57 wrote the document was “about the alien invasion to the world
and council” and participant 71 wrote that “its talking about alien existence” (sic).

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Question 9. Define invasive species in your own words.
Purposive Survey Cohort
Unfortunately, I realized I wanted to ask this question after 10 people had already
responded. I reached out to those people and asked them to respond to my question. I
received 6 responses. That plus the responses I already had come to 20 responses.
Further, a response came in later. I incorporated their response as best I could, but it came
after I finished analyzing and coding questions 1-4. Therefore, I incorporate their
anecdotal or opinion responses and leave the others out.
Many responses suggested that an invasive species in some way caused
damage/harm in general, or harm to native species and/or native ecological regions.
Sometimes harm was replaced or added to that invasive species spread quickly or
dominate. Participant 12 used the word “threatening” and said an invasive species would
“drive down species diversity by creating a monoculture”.
Questioning the Narrative
In addition to defining invasive species, participant 25 begins to question the
existing narrative of invasive species, writing that “I have been curious about the
ecological functions of invasive species after human disturbance, and whether they might
provide essential functions that the existing native species would be pressed to provide”.
Participant 21 writes “Personally I think care must be taken when defining non-native
species” because “global warming may create a condition where species may need to
migrate on their own or with several degrees’ longitude or latitude or more”. Participant
22 argued that the current idea about invasive species might be outdated and human

127

centric, that “invasive” is “an arbitrary designation that is based on current conventions
on what is considered a native from historical baseline and human interests”.
Mechanical Turk Cohort
Many participants responded bluntly, and most were direct definitions stating that
they cause harm to the environment, humans, animals, or are economically harmful.
Some mentioned that native species are unprepared for invasives and can’t compete with
invasives. Ten Participants (10, 11, 14,15, 16, 21, 29, 50, 52, 70) saw invasives as just
non-native, neglecting to mention harm. Participant 61 simply wrote “I don’t know”.
Many participants wrote unfavorably of invasives, they are “bad” (13), they are “a
species that destroys the environment” (3). Participant 71 saw invasives as “intruders
who are not welcome”. Conversely, participant 30 interpreted the invasive species as “not
harmful”. Participant 76 wrote that they saw ‘invasive’ as “just another word for
something different”. One participant (20) defined invasives using the word “ecology”,
but also defined what they meant by ecology as “the total organic assembly in a
location… it could even be the ‘ecology’ of a tree stump”.
Examples
Three participants (11, 33, 39) provided examples of invasive species they knew
about from their own experiences. One described non-native fish and weeds in
Minnesota, while the other two described the effects of the Kudzu vine that “took over
other plants and can lead to soil depletion” or “something that’s not native to the area that
comes in and grows and takes over causing harm to people, pets, property, like the kudzu
to the south”.
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Aliens
Again, several participants (44, 47, 57, and 69) perceived invasives as
extraterrestrials as: “FROM ANOTHER PLANET” or “Life from another source other
than earth”. Participant 57 mentions “Invasion of outer world living organisms” and
Participant 69 wrote they were species “unseen before on earth”.

Figure 22 Frequency of Plastic Words in Survey Responses

Frequency of Plastic Words in Surveys
160
140

Occurence in Survey

120
100
80
60
40
20
0

Plastic Word

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Figure 23 Frequency of Plastic Words in Mechanical Turk and Purposive Survey

Number of Occurences

Plastic Word Presence in Survey Responses Mechanical
Turk and Purposive Separated
100
80
60
40
20
0

Plastic Word
Purposive survey Cohort Plastic Word Totals

Mechanical Turk Survey Cohort Plastic Words Totals

In all survey responses, Figure 19 shows how often plastic words occur. “planning”,
“development” and “health” occur most frequently. Figure 20 shows a comparison of
presence of plastic word responses between the Purposive Survey Cohort and the
Mechanical Turk Cohort. This chart shows that there are consistently more instances of
plastic words in the Mechanical Turk Survey Cohort responses than in Purposive Survey
Cohort responses. This may suggest that the more educated individuals in the Purposive
Survey Cohort understood plastic words better but did not necessarily find them easiest to
understand. The following Figures 21 and Figure 22 compare the frequency of plastic
word in each short answer response for Purposive Survey Cohort and Mechanical Turk
Survey Cohort.

Figure 24 Frequency of Plastic Words in Purposive Survey Cohort Responses by
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Question

Frequency of Plastic Words

Frequency of Plastic Words in Purposive Survey Cohort
Responses by Question
230
180
130
80
30
-20

Easiest
Sections

Hardest
Sections

Easiest Words

Hardest
Words

Define Hard
Words

Summarize

Question

Define
Invasive
Species

Figure 25 Frequency of Plastic Words in Mechanical Turk Survey Cohort Responses by
Question

Frequency of Plastic Words

Frequency of Plastic Words in Mechanical Turk Survey
Cohort Responses by Question
230
180
130
80
30
-20

Easiest
Hardest Easiest Words Hardest
Sections MT Sections MT
MT
Words MT

Question

Define Hard
Words MT

Summarize
MT

Define
Invasive
Species MT

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We can see that in each case there is a higher frequency of plastic words for the response
to the easiest and hardest sections, but that the Mechanical Turk Cohort responses contain
around double the amount of plastic words.
Interview
The interview consisted of a series of emails. The occupational role of my
interviewee was to colloquialize “technical concepts, scientific objectives and
engineering challenges” that revolved around their line of work. They would analyze
documents and, when necessary, interviewed “subject matter experts” in order to
understand more clearly the more complex data or concepts they reviewed. Then, they
would synopsize and simplify the work, “aiming for a general audience”. They explained
that their writing was almost always addressed to the general public and the news media.
In answering my question about whether there were inaccessible words, phrases or ways
of explanation to be replaced, they replied that there were “many, many words, phrases
and concepts” they had to replace to make the writing clearer and more easily
understood. The example they include is the word “nominal” which has a different
meaning within and without the context of the discipline this translator worked with.
Colloquially, ‘nominal’ means bare-minimum requirements, but in the context of the
discipline this translator worked within, nominal could be replaced “operating normally”,
or “operating within acceptable parameter”. They went on to say “It’s important to be
sensitive to language usage such as this that con confuse the non-technical reader”. The
more difficult parts of translation were around adequately summarizing math or physics
data. There was also a lot of effort that “went into critical readings of the document to
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eliminate confusing statements, or language that could be easily misinterpreted”. My
interviewee hedged in replying to the last question of whether there were ultimately
documents that did not end up feeling accessible to the audience ascribed. They explained
that the range of people for whom these documents were meant could be high schoolers
to “an advanced technical audience” and so the analysis in the texts could be “incredibly
complex and highly technical”. They occasionally needed to convey more rather than less
information, sacrificing comprehension for accuracy. The executive summaries were
especially important, because it is from this that most readers find their takeaways. It was
important to have people who could speak easily with “public, media, government and
technical community” to respond to a wide range of questions these differing bodies
might pose.

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Chapter 5: Discussion
Invasive Species Management Documents
As I mentioned in my Methods section, there were a handful of words that my
codes picked up but which were not inherently plastic words. I had hoped to put these
words and others that occurred in survey responses of confusing or difficult words
through Uwe Poersken’s plastic word test, however time constraints being what they are,
I opted out of this part of research. Coding invasive species documents revealed a
statistically significant presence of plastic words. That these documents significantly rely
on plastic words to tell their story will likely have certain effects similar to those that
Poersken has described and can be found in (See Appendix 1). The presence of plastic
words is not surprising, nor do I believe it inherently damns the document. I have utilized
plastic words extensively in this paper, and not simply because this paper deals with
plastic words, but because they are omnipresent and largely inescapable. I think it is often
inevitable to use plastic words, but if intention is clarity and accessibility, I think it is
possible to overcome the confusion and dominating vagaries of plastic words.
Surveys
Purposive Survey Cohort
There were a few hiccups in sending out surveys and collecting responses. I came
up with a question after I sent my survey out, and therefore had to ask those who already
took the survey to answer the extra question. There were three participants who did not
end up answering the extra question. However, written in my survey instructions I
explained that I did not require participants to answer every question. There seemed to be
confusion in the purposive survey of what 1 and what 10 meant. In future, I would elect
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to give an example of someone who would choose 1 and someone who would choose 10.
For example: Martha is an invasive species biologist. She chooses a 10 for familiarity
because she works with invasives for her job. Jennifer happened to be one of the authors
and wrote this document. She chose 10 for read-difficulty, because she helped write the
document.
Furthermore, although I do not know exactly who responded to my purposive
survey, nor the number of people it reached and so cannot give an estimated response
rate. I do not think a large portion of people who received the survey ended up replying to
the survey. I know for a fact that some people did not send it out to their respective
affiliated groups. However, my goal was to get a wide range of respondents and to have
between 8 and 20 people. For this project, the importance was the diversity of
respondents, and the answers I received were widely varied.
Mechanical Turk Cohort
In the Mechanical Turk Cohort there was a high number of unusable responses
(repeat surveyors, irrelevant or nonsense responses, etc.). If I were to do this project
again, I would elect to select the box that asks if I want only the most elite workers to
respond. Initially I wanted my survey to be generally accessible, as is the nature of this
entire project. However, 24 of the 101 responses made little to no sense and were clearly
the result of a worker seeking financial compensation and disregarding survey etiquette. I
had to cut 25% of the responses.
Takeaways

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There was a strong issue in clarity, even from those who responded that they
could understand the document. This is most noticeable when comparing responses to
questions 5 and 6. The section of the preamble that dealt with difficulty of defining
invasive species was considered both easy to understand and difficult to understand for a
significant percentage of responses in both Mechanical Turk Cohort and in the Purposive
Survey Cohort. A significant percentage of Purposive Survey Cohort responses also
suggested that definition sections were both easy and difficult to understand. These sorts
of seemingly contradictory responses remind me of another characteristic of plastic
words—that they are familiar enough that most people think they know what they mean,
however when pressed it is still difficult to define these words. These sections of
definition and difficulty of definition do not contain a high percentage of plastic words,
but their phrasing seems to share this trademark plastic characteristic of Poersken’s
words. Plastic words are present in responses for questions 3 and 4. There was a visible
presence of plastic words in responses, and plastic words occurred more frequently in
Mechanical Turk Survey Cohort responses than in the Purposive Survey Cohort
responses yet they did not occur dramatically in responses. This is not surprising, because
as Poersken says of plastic words, “When they first appear, they are fashionable and
command attention; but then they merge with the everyday and soon seem
commonsense” (Poersken, 1999, p.1). This is the trick of them—they settle snugly into
the vernacular, made familiar and we assume (until further pressed) to know what they
mean or what they seem to mean. Responses suggest that the document is unclear
because words are used in ways that are variable and changing, or because of grammar
gone astray. Responses allude to effect of plastic words. Responses such as “I don’t
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know” and responses of confusion and self-doubt suggest the effect of silence. In
response to question 6 which asked which words were most difficult to understand, one
participant wrote: “risk/benefit assessment, regulatory, invasive (none of the vocabulary
words were very difficult for me to understand, but these could possibly have multiple
contexts/meanings” 3. These words are not plastic words, but they have a few plastic
characteristics. While plastic words are problematic, clarification depends not on the
words themselves, but how they are used. Poersekn says of plastic words: “The effects
radiate into language” (Poersken, 2004, p. 26). Poersken also explains, using his friend
Ivan Illich’s observation: “usage of these words colors their environment: in their vicinity
other words and word groups are taken up and reditected” (Poersken, 2004, p. 59). It
seems that when plastic words are used, their effects will bleed into the rest of what is
being said—in this manner plastic words colonize language.
Responses also suggest that acronyms or titles that were either explained poorly
or just not explained accounted for difficulty in comprehension. There were occasional
inputs of opinion and criticism of the document. There were responses that questioned or
challenged the narrative of invasive species, specifically who gets to write this narrative?
Why do they get to decide who benefits from invasive species eradication?
Examples, anecdotes and stories make ideas clearer.
The fact that some thought that the word alien referred not to non-native species
but literal extra-terrestrials suggest to me a need to clarify certain terms for those for
whom English is a second language.

3

This response came after I performed the coding for questions 1-4 and so could not be included in that
data analysis.

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Interview
Ultimately, while informative, my interview did not give me as many insights as I
had hoped for. From their responses, I conclude that in translating from more technical to
less technical, there was a variety of words to be replaced. The reason why words needed
to be replaced was because they had different meanings in different contexts. Careful
research went into making sure the translation of such variable words remained authentic
to original technical document. There is difficulty in translating a document to be
appropriate for an audience with a wide range of familiarity in how a discipline is
described by experts and specialists. When translation was not possible, there exist a
group of people who can easily communicate with the public to answer queries. While
plastic words did not show up in responses to my questions or as examples of words that
needed to be changed, the reason why certain words needed to be translated—that they
vary from context to context—is a defining trait of plastic words.
Translation
After data collection, research and analysis, I began to create my own translation
of the document from my survey (See Original Document in Appendix 11). In translation
my intention was ultimately clarity. Ideally, this translation would be a collaboration,
passed between many different people. I have replaced invasive with injurious, and have
eliminated militant metaphor and plastic words (except in the case of “management” and
“health” which are in organization titles and definitions, respectively).
Translation – First Attempt

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Preamble—It is difficult to agree upon a definition for “Injurious Species”. We
hope that by illuminating the difficulties, we can come closer to an agreed upon
definition.
Key Terms: This paper uses the term injurious species instead of alien, non-native
or invasive or any of the other myriad of synonyms that have been or are being used to
talk about invasive species. Injurious implies the potential to cause injury. The other
words have xenophobic or militaristic nuances, or are too vague or variable in meaning
and do not imply the effects these particular species have.
The Executive Order 13112, written in 1999, and the Executive Summary of the
National Injurious Species Management Plan have both tried to define injurious species.
Their definitions are: “an alien species whose introduction does or is likely to cause
economic or environmental harm or harm to human health” and “a species that is nonnative to the ecosystem under consideration and whose introduction causes or is likely to
cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health”. The National Injurious
Species Council, alongside the Injurious Species Advisory Committee strives to keep the
National Invasive Species Management Plan current and relevant, and able to adapt to
change. These two groups accepted a certain set of principles in the National Injurious
Species Management Plan, including Guiding Principle #1 which defines injurious
species but argues also that “many alien species are non-invasive and support human
livelihoods or a preferred quality of life”.
It is true that many non-native species are harmful. A clear example is West Nile
virus, because it spreads rapidly and can cause death. Other non-native species are harder
to define as clearly injurious. Some non-native species are considered harmful, while
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others consider them beneficial. An example of this is the bathua plant in India which are
considered weeds because they interfere with wheat growth but can also provide good
food, and good source of Vitamin A. Because different people perceive benefit and harm
in different ways, it is difficult to define any non-native species as inarguably harmful
(and therefore injurious) to everyone in the region into which it has moved. The National
Injurious Species Council is currently updating the National Injurious Species
Management Plan based on public comments. This is required by the Executive Order
13112 which first called national attention to invasive species and created the National
Injurious Species Management Plan, the Injurious Species Advisory Council and the
National Injurious Species Council.
There is still confusion with how the term injurious species is used and what it
means, and therefore what exactly National Injurious Species Management Plan proposes
to do. Their intentions regarding use of private property, types of pets one can own,
plants and animals grown in agriculture, and various local, statewide or global policies
are therefore unclear. This paper intends to clarify the term injurious species, and
therefore what can be expected when you might encounter actions, laws, policies etc.
regarding injurious species. We, the Injurious Species Advisory Council, know the term
is confusing, and biological or ecological definitions will not carry over seamlessly to
regulatory definitions. We believe that the clarification in this paper should apply to any
and all injurious species in any and all regions. We believe most stakeholders will accept
our explanation and use it to define injurious species. By clarifying injurious species, we
will also point out the areas in which clarification remains difficult and variable. We hope
that our clarification will be used to tell others what injurious species are, in helping
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resolve conflicts, and in dealing with extant or potential injurious species through
prevention, control and eradication.
Translation – Second Attempt
Key Terms: This paper uses the term injurious species instead of alien, non-native
or invasive or any of the other myriad of synonyms that have been or are being used to
talk about invasive species. Injurious implies the potential to cause injury. The other
words have xenophobic or militaristic nuances, or are too vague or variable in meaning
and do not imply the effects these particular species have.
Injurious species are difficult to define resolutely. They are also difficult to name,
going by many different names by many different people. We offer two similar and
extant definitions.
First, Executive Order 13112 defines an injurious species as “an alien species
whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to
human health.”
Second, the Executive Summary of the National Injurious Species Management
Plan (NISMP) defines injurious species “a species that is non-native to the ecosystem
under consideration and whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or
environmental harm or harm to human health.”
These definitions are similar in taste, but within them lies great controversy and
hypocrisy. Injurious species are affectionately called “invasive species” by most. This
term is metaphorical in nature and therefore persuasive and misleading. It carries militant
undertones. These species are not a militarized enemy invading, but rather a species more
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often than not kidnapped and carried from region to region by anthropogenic forces,
where they were inclined to survive. Their survival occasionally occurs to the detriment
of native species because their sudden presence upsets a habitat that has been balancing
for millennia. However, as the NISMP explains “many alien species are non-invasive and
support human livelihoods or a preferred quality of life.” Injurious species are subjective;
some may find injurious species harmful while others may find the same species
beneficial. It is hard to come to a unanimous definition because different people benefit
from different things.
There are clear examples of injurious species which are unfavorable to all,
including the fatal and loathsome West Nile Virus, responsible for mass death. However,
other injurious species are perceived injurious only to some, while others may reap great
benefits from them. Further, a non-native species may only potentially decrease
economic worth of something in order to be considered harmful. For example, bathua in
India is considered a weed because it competes with the highly marketable wheat plant. It
is therefore being sprayed with herbicides. Yet locals would use it for its nutritious value
and its high Vitamin A content.
It is therefore difficult to concretely or unanimously define any species as just
injurious, and therefore the role of the NISMP is similarly vague. The following paper
hopes to clarify the term as best as possible by contemporary standards, but is and will be
a living document, one open to interpretation, conversation and change. We encourage
our readers to share their stories of non-native species as well as currently perceived
injurious species so that we may come together to find a way to diminish those which
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cause most harm, while observing those which might cause more benefits. We hope too,
with the help of our readers, to discover occasion when injurious species integrate within
an ecosystem in a way that does not cause great ecological harm, occasion when an
ecosystem demonstrates its resilience. The injurious species that exist now are subject to
change, as is our perspective of them. The common understanding of injurious species by
an open and public NISMP will be illustrated in this paper, and this is the primary
purpose of this paper. Because the definition of injurious species is variable and liable to
change, we have done the best we can and hope to continue to do so as our perspective
grows, but the definition we include and illustrate below we hope will be acceptable to
most stakeholders, with the common understanding that this definition is a democratic
one, for which many and all voices will, to the best of our ability, be considered and
taken into account. This living definition should help inform, explain, prevent, control,
and maintain injurious species.
What I Learned
The first attempt served as a translation, sentence by sentence. I sought to
eliminate complicated words and terminologies, while still conveying the same message.
After reading this first translation, I was unsatisfied. It still felt rigid and inaccessible and
confusing despite elimination of plastic words and of metaphor. The second translation
carries over the tone and message, but is not a sentence-by-sentence translation. Further it
wears more stylistic elements that make it feel alive and open. It engages the reader, asks
for help and participation. It is humble, but intentional. The use of “we” also, I think, will
help ground the reader, and establish something common. There are real people behind
this document, and their known presence gives life and connection to the words. Despite
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confusion not necessarily arising specifically from Poersken’s list of plastic words, the
ways words are used is the source of much confusion. As I have suggested, the effects of
plastic words infect the documents in which they reside. Perhaps their residue clings to
my translations. I do not know. The translations are an experiment, and serve as a
conversational piece, or an invitation for consideration. I cannot draw anything more
solidly than my experience translating them. If I had more time, I would have sent these
translations to the Purposive Survey Cohorts and the Mechanical Turk Survey Cohorts
and had them complete the survey again with the new translation. Alternatively, I could
have sent my translation with the survey questions to a new cohort, and then compare
survey results from the original document and survey results from my translated
document.
By All Means, “Call Out” That Word!
Earlier this year, I participated in a Poster Session with the rest of my MES class.
In this Poster Session, we designed a poster about our thesis topic. As I stood by my
poster, a student asked me a question which I thought very interesting and very
important. They asked me about a word they needed to use when writing their thesis. “It
seems kind of like a plastic word”, they told me. “I don’t think I can use any other word
instead. So, what should I do if I have to use a plastic word when writing my thesis?”
They agreed that plastic words were confusing and not optimal ways of communicating
findings to an audience. They were essentially asking me what their responsibility was, as
a scientist, when they used these sorts of confusing, slippery words. I told them that I
thought, in general, that it is best to try to avoid these sorts of words. I agreed that some
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of these words are unavoidable. In that case, I explained, I think it’s important to “call
out” these changing words that seem to avoid concrete definitions. Uwe Poersken has
suggested adding a component to dictionary definitions, where a word’s slang or archaic
use is noted in italic, so too might is plastic use be (Poersken, 2004). This suggestion is
laudable for the general public to be made aware of plastic words, but not necessarily
directly helpful to the wayward scientists who, stuck between a rock and a hard place,
does not want to use such vague terms and yet cannot use any other term to describe
without some sacrifice of clarity or scientific integrity. Here I offer my own practical
suggestion for those scientists who use this kind of language but want to avoid the effects
of inaccessibility, confusion, or impenetrability.
How to “call out” the word.
1. Name them.
2. Define them in the context of how they are being used in your specific paper.
3. Bring attention to the fact that their definitions are variable and change from
context to context.
For example, if I must use the word ‘communication’ in a document I would write this
near the beginning of my document:

Definition of Key Terms
There are several words I use in this paper which I wish to call attention to,
because they are used in many different disciplines and carry many different

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connotations, meanings or associations. To avoid confusion, I wish to call
attention to how I am using this word in this context.

Communication: Used in the context of this document, communication means
the act of speaking, writing, or otherwise using language to convey thoughts
and ideas. I am speaking only of communication between human beings.

Many scientific papers will define a specific term they use if they want to convey
a specific meaning. However, these papers rarely call attention to those words as being
used variably in other contexts. This is a key step, I think, towards lessening the power of
these variable words. The more they are called out, the more people will be aware of their
power, and the words will be made powerless. As they are called out more and more in
this manner, when these words are used in confusing and inaccessible ways, they no
longer will be met with silence. Rather, they will be met with the question, “What do you
mean when you use this word?”.
Here is an example from a paper that invokes plastic words as it calls out the word
“sustainability” and proposes ideas as to why the word sustainability carries some
referential characteristics of plastic words:
Does the sheer flexibility of ‘sustainability’ imply that the term is unfit for use? Is
it one of those ‘plastic words’ (Poerksen 1995) that need conceptual repair work?
In this book we have taken another route by stressing that the conceptual
weakness of the term has important consequences: since the co-existence of
different articulations allows various interests to be combined, the term allows the
alignment of different stakeholders with their own perspectives, so facilitating
joint efforts. A single interpretation of ‘sustainable’ would make these joint
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efforts less likely. The co-existence of different articulations also gives rise to
dilemmas and paradoxes. When, for instance, EU guidelines translate the abstract
notion of ‘sustainable use of cars’ into a requirement for cars to contain a certain
percentage of recyclable material, it forces car design engineers to be more
creative and responsible but, at the same time, rules out designs using lighter nonrecyclable materials that translate ‘sustainable use of cars’ into ‘less fuel use’. In
this book, we have avoided using the terms ‘sustainability’ or ‘sustainable
development’ in a narrow prescriptive sense because we wanted to reveal the
tensions. For example, calling wind turbines ‘sustainable’ implies that adversaries
of wind turbines—such as those arguing in favour of landscape amenity or bird
protection—are opposed to sustainable development or are merely addressing
minor side-effects of a ‘good’ technology. Moreover, there are futures without
wind turbines, without nuclear power stations, without biofuels, and they might
all be sustainable. Calling a technology ‘sustainable’ can often be a way of
derailing any criticism of it. The concept of SD is often criticized as being vague
and ill-defined. However, in our view, it is not so much vagueness as levels of
analysis that are being confused: at some levels concepts can be defined and
calculated (Mulder et al., 2017: p 236-237).
So I will end this piece by calling out a term. While it is not a plastic word, I still
believe it warrants being re-examined, made clear and critiqued. That term is invasive
species.
Invasive species is a word I use in this paper which I wish to call attention to,
because it is used in many different ways and carries many different connotations,
meanings, and associations. It can be used to mean anything ranging from a fatal germ to
an ugly plant.
The word invasive is militaristic, and the term came about in post war era, and
carries militaristic connotations which historically have linked to xenophobia and
confusion. What invasive species refers to is also a source of confusion. Harm can be
subjective and differ from person to person. Therefore, the invasive species I refer to in
this paper are these particular species. I call them invasive because they cause this
particular kind of harm.
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Concluding Remarks
In general, my data collection has this narrative: 1: Determine if invasive species
management has plastic words by coding documents. 2: Discover if plastic words are
used plastically by monitoring their effects in survey responses. 3: Obtain understanding
and perspective of translating from scientific ways of writing to a way of communicating
these findings with the public in accessible way, by conducting interview. 4: Experiment
with translation, eliminating metaphor, plastic words, and the plastic words infection of
the rest of the words.
The invasive species documents contained enough plastic words to warrant
consideration and rethink ways of expressing and communicating findings. The survey
responses suggest to me that the phrasing, word choice, sentence structure etc. impede a
general comprehension. This document consisted of 542 words, which seems relatively
short. Regardless, the document was confusing and difficult to understand by enough
people to warrant consideration in how to phrase and word these sorts of documents for
the public. This document has the plastic word effect of silence. While plastic words were
not necessarily the source of confusion, the way words were used—i.e. interchangeably
or with varying definitions – reflects a fundamental attribute of plastic words. The fault is
not just within this list of 46 problematic variable words—plastic is a phenomenon that
does not just occur with these plastic words, but is a more general way of inaccessibly
communicating to the public. Communicating to the public in a plastic manner will
invariably include using a significant number of plastic words. However, as I learned
from my own original translation, simply eliminating plastic words from the document
does not seem to necessarily clarify meaning. It is imperative to prioritize an audience,
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and it is imperative to understand what an audience will and will not understand.
However, this does not mean one should rely on similarly problematic rhetoric that can
be misleading in promoting a singular narrative. I think it is important to follow the rule:
“when in doubt, call it out”. But one could end up with a lengthy list of variable words at
the beginning of a paper which could serve as an inaccessible and abstracting preface,
undermining the rest of the work. Further, calling out words only gets to one part of the
issue I have been describing with how science is communicated. There are still
fundamental problems with its elitism and inability to incorporate other perspectives.
These results demonstrate the tendency of plastic words to warp the meaning, sentiment,
and effect of any passage, paragraph or policy they touch. Plastic words, which lend any
document dubious conceptual authority, render the rest of that document vague and
hollow by association. It is difficult to affect meaning when one’s message is structured
in relation to the meaningless plastic words. Thus, by virtue of words such as
‘development’, ‘program’, and ‘management’, a whole proposal is emptied of linguistic
precision and, ultimately, meaning. Therefore, the count of plastic words per document is
less important than their mere presence. Plastic words turn the language they neighbor
into purgatory.
Good writing, and good communicating are skills that must be learned and honed.
In science, what gets in the way most clearly of good writing is the lure of objectivity that
eliminates the human being behind the words. Of a document riddled with plastic words,
Uwe Poersken notes: “In such statements one can hear no voice” (Poersken, 2004, p. 18).
Conveying notions about nature is difficult, and it must be conventionally formal, and
academic. However, this does not mean we need to sacrifice form, style or art and that
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human being, to convey it. Storytelling is and always will be the oldest form of learning a
lesson. Simple eradication of plastic words does not cleanse the rest of the document of
their impenetrable and vague plasticity. Stylistic elements without manipulation or
simplification, humility, humanity and an appeal for other stories are, I think,
fundamental characteristics of writing and communication that will invite comprehension
and important collaboration.
A Few Suggestions for Future Work
Future work could include more cross analysis between disciplines of how
prominent plastic words are, and comparison comprehensibility and reaction to
translations which eliminate problematic words. Future work could also include studying
the effects of comprehension and reaction when works include list of key problem terms
at outset compared to works that do not include key problem words at outset. Future work
could also include offering original key document to surveyors, and offering translated
document to other surveyors to identify difference in read-difficulty. Future work should
in general be about how to write more clearly, effectively, accessibly and democratically
when conveying influential scientific information to the public.

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Chapter 6: Conclusion
My work has been primarily a critique of the language used in science. I have
explored the nuances of a militaristic metaphoric paradigm as well as the issues with
reliance on the variable language of plastic words. We know how militaristic metaphor
works to persuade of a simplifying and misleading narrative around invasive species.
When metaphor is combined intrinsically with plastic words, the effect is that the
narrative is protected both by inaccessible language that tells a false metaphorical story
which resonates intrinsically with our greatest fears. Intentionally or not, this
combination makes conversation with this sub-discipline impossible. This asociality of
invasive species sub-discipline of science extends into other realms of science. I would
like to end by exploring and expanding upon this critique of language in science, and
critique the literal dominant language by which science is communicated—English.
As we have explored, historically Latin was the preferred objective yet
undemocratic language of science. Today English is the dominant tongue by which the
story of science is told. An Atlantic article asks the question I hope to answer in their
article entitled: “The Hidden Bias of Science’s Universal Language: The vast majority of
scientific papers today are published in English. What gets lost when other languages get
left out?” (2015). The author, Adam Huttner-Koros, cites a Research Trends study from
2012 that found that 80 percent of over 21,000 articles coming from 239 different
countries in SCOPUS 4 were written in English (Huttner-Koros, 2015). English is so
common in other countries that academic papers written in English will outnumber
academic papers written in other country’s own languages “several times over” (Huttner-

4

SCOPUS is one of the biggest databases for peer-reviewed journals in the world.

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Koros, 2015). In the Netherlands, it’s a ratio of 40 English-written academic texts to 1
academic text written in the native tongue Dutch (Huttner-Koros, 2015). This is clear too
when English scientific jargon is created too quickly to be translated, and “words ‘quark’
and ‘chromosome,’ … are simply transliterated from English” (Huttner-Koros, 2015).
Paraphrasing linguist Joe Lo Bianco, the Atlantic article explains the phenomenon of
domain collapse— “as a language stops adapting to changes in a given field, it can
eventually cease to be an effective means of communication in certain contexts
altogether” (Huttner-Koros, 2015). The Atlantic article quotes a researcher of science
communication Sean Perera,
“The English language plays a dominant role, one could even call it a hegemony
… As a consequence, minimal room or no room at all is allowed to
communicators of other languages to participate in science in their own voice—
they are compelled to translate their ideas into English. In practice, this attitude
selects for only a very specific way of looking at the world, one that can make it
easy to discount other types of information as nothing more than folklore”
(Huttner-Koros, 2015).
Or as Shiva suggests “primitive” or “unscientific” (Shiva, 2003, p.10). Quoting Perera,
The Atlantic article argues that with English being the dominating way of explaining
science, scientists from other cultures are made to relinquish their language in order to be
heard. This shunting away of other languages comes at ‘the great cost of losing their
unique ways of communicating ideas” (Huttner-Koros, 2015). It is this piece that I am
primarily concerned with, that the space for other languages, other ways of seeing the
world is growing smaller and smaller. As we know from semiotics, language is not
simply a word referring to a thing. Language is another way of seeing the world. There is
a vast system of meaning, interpreting and perceiving that exist uniquely within each
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culture and language. Each different language gives a wholly unique perspective. Today,
not only is there less room for other languages, but also they are fading away, dying off.
They are going extinct. As these other languages disappear, as Perera says “other ways of
understanding the world can simply fade away” (Huttner-Koros, 2015).
It is not only in science that English is dominant. Wolfgang Sachs and Poersken
both comment on a similar extinction. Beginning with the statistic that 5103 languages
exist, Poersken explores how they are stacked up, hierarchically, pyramidal. Citing
Nigeria and India as reference points, Poersken explains while a diverse array of many
different languages exist in these regions (over 400 in Nigeria and 1652 in Coulmas
India) English is the predominant language of official discourse in these countries.
Poersken writes:
Asia and Africa each speak 30 percent of the world’s living languages, the Pacific
region 20 percent, and the American content 16 percent. Europe, by contrast, has
barely one percent—sixty-seven languages. In the birthplace of the nation state,
therefore, the number of minorities is the smallest; the number of languages is
barely double the number of states. Can we conclude from this that the nation
state extinguishes languages? In every case history shows us that the modern state
pushes them to the margins (Poersken, 2004, p. 2)
It comes to head as “a reduction of diversity” (Poersken, 2004, p. 3) and a rise of
a monoculture of English. “Wherever we look” Poersken notes, “fewer kinds in ever
fewer variants of corn and rice and wheat; Chinese, Russian, and English; and sheep,
cattle, and pigs look back at us” (Poersken, 2004, p. 3). We can see here how a
monoculture formed from these dominating species and races decreases diversity and
biodiversity. Yet recall how bathua, locally beneficial plant, is labelled weed to maintain
the growth of marketable wheat. Poersken explains that, “Five languages cover almost
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half the earth, a hundred languages almost all of it. The universalist orientation to the
nation state destroys the diversity of living languages. But even these triumphant
languages are not the peak of the linguistic pyramid” (Poersken, 2004, p. 2).
It is not just English sitting atop this linguistic pyramid, Poersken warns us. “The
peak is comprised of that small and spreading international vocabulary of a hundred, or
fifty, or fifteen words…” (Poersken, 2004, p. 2). He is speaking, of course, of the
tyrannical plastic words which sit atop, dominate and infect languages, across borders
and cultures.
A diverse number of languages, over 5000, exist across the globe, and most are
tucked away in little distant corners the earth: “They hide out in isolated mountain
valleys, far-off islands and inaccessible deserts” (Sachs, 1999, p. 93). However, it is
believed that within one hundred or two hundred years, global language count will
decrease to just a few hundred (Sachs, 1999). Sachs compares this extinction of
languages to the great loss of biodiversity we are facing as we enter what many consider
the seventh mass extinction. He writes:
Languages are dying out every bit as quickly as species. While, in the latter case,
plants and animals disappear from the history of nature never to be seen again,
with the demise of languages, entire cultures are vanishing form the history of
civilization, never to be lived again. For each tongue contains its own way of
perceiving man and nature, experiencing joy and sorrow, and finding meaning in
the flow of events. To pray or to love, to dream or to reason, evoke different
things when done in Farsi, German or Zapotec. Just as certain plants and animals
are responsible for the maintenance of large ecosystems, so languages often carry
subtle cultures through time. Once species disappear, ecosystems break down
once languages die out, cultures falter (Sachs, 1999, p. 93).

154

We can see here a parallel between how scientists perceive of invasive species,
and how the English language dominates, colonizes and wipes out. As we face the death
of other species, we are also facing now is the death of alternate perspectives.
Biodiversity loss and cultural diversity loss march together across the planet. But one is
receiving far more attention than the other just as the one causes the other. As Sachs
explains, “Along with languages, entire conceptions of what it means to be human have
evaporated during the development decades since 1950” (Sachs, 1999, p. 94). Language
is the way in which people perceive their world. Words paint the world with color,
culture, history and context. A rose without Romeo would be far less romantic. Grimly,
Sachs notes that “Whichever way one looks at it, the homogenization of the world is in
full swing. A global monoculture spreads like an oil slick over the entire planet (Sachs,
1999, p. 94). This monocultural oil-slick eliminates other ways of thinking and being in
the world. Wiping out more descriptive words, different cultures, making them obsolete
under the banner of “development” allows but a single narrative of development to
flourish. Shiva writes, “The historical experience of non-western culture suggests that it
is the western systems of knowledge which are blind to alternatives” (Shiva 2003, p. 11).
The road to knowledge is littered with wide-eyed corpses—other ways of seeing. A
military metaphor is apt here—it suggests that we will win and they will lose. We are the
dominant perspective of development and they are any other perspective. As English is
the dominant language of Science, plastic words the dominant words of the powerful, and
militarism a dominant metaphor of persuasion we can see clearly how these factors all
combine in a monoculture colonialist perspective. We bemoan the loss of biodiversity,

155

but hypocritically maintain a largely single, monocultural perspective. Vandana Shiva
notes:
Dominant scientific knowledge thus breeds a monoculture of the mind by making
space for local alternatives disappear, very much like monocultures of introduced
plant varieties leading to the displacement and destruction of local diversity.
Dominant knowledge also destroys the very conditions for alternatives to exist,
very much like the introduction of monocultures destroying the very conditions
for diverse species to exist” (Shiva, 2003, p. 12)
It is an issue, as Vandana Shiva explores in her text Monocultures of the Mind:
Perspectives on Biodiversity and Biotechnology, of local versus global knowledge. She
argues that under the regime of globally dominant way of knowing through science,
“local knowledge is made to disappear by simply not seeing it, by negating its very
existence” (Shiva, 2003, p. 9). By local knowledge, she means traditionalist, often
indigenous ways of knowing, which are unfortunately synonymous with “‘primitive’ and
‘unscientific’” (Shiva, 2003, p. 10). Shiva writes “Correspondingly, the western system is
assumed to be uniquely ‘scientific’ and universal. The prefix ‘scientific’ for the modern
systems, and ‘unscientific’ for the traditional knowledge systems has, however, less to do
with knowledge and more to do with power” (Shiva 2003 p. 10).
In this way of perceiving the world, “western systems of knowledge have
generally been viewed as universal” (Shiva 2003 p. 9-10). Yet in this dichotomous clash
of local knowledge versus global knowledge, we forget that our current western global
science knowledge is from a “local system, with its social basis in a particular culture,
class and gender. It is not universal in an epistemological sense. It is merely the
globalized version of a very local and parochial tradition” (Shiva, 2003 p. 9). It is this

156

misappropriation of knowledge whereby “Power is also built into the perspective which
views the dominant system not as a globalized local tradition, but as a universal tradition,
inherently superior to local systems” (Shiva, 1999, p. 9-10). Our dominant system was
once local, and now has colonizes the world, pushing away alternate perspectives in its
path.
For the record, I do not want to be miscritiqued as Bruno Latour has been 40
years ago—as undermining science’s credibility. I would not be able to write this thesis
if science weren’t credible. Yet it burns my tongue too to say that “global warming is a
fact whether you like it or not” (Latour, 2003), not because I don’t believe in global
warming, but because I don’t think we can profess something as fact so emphatically
without room for conversation and argument. Today, Shiva writes, “Modern western
science is not to be evaluated, it is merely to be accepted” (Shiva, 2003 p. 12). I
understand the dire state that has thrown us who want minimize climate change into
flurry against climate change deniers, but it is this dichotomous way of thinking and
rejecting the others that will be our whole undoing. Moreover, it is largely if not
completely because of science and technology that our planet is in danger. Where would
our planet be if it were not for yesterday’s cars of tomorrow which today collectively
burp millions of tons of polluting carbon dioxide into the air each year, heating up our
planet and causing global environmental devastation? What of yesterday’s tomorrow’s
new nuclear power, the waste of which today cannot be destroyed, which toxifies
anything it touches so the best way we can handle it is to submerge it carefully in water
and bury deep within the earth and pray no one stumbles upon it within its 24,000-year
half-life (Madsen, 2010). Our understanding of science is incomplete, and we are blinded
157

by our own comfort. Science undoubtedly has illuminating merits—it is not the
credibility of science I am questioning—only the ways by which science holds its
perspective as dominant above all else and the visible faults that we can see within this
undemocratic way of performing, here and in the third world. The scientific worldview is
not the only worldview, despite how it is perceived. It is this colonization of belief that
needs to be rethought and untaught.
I believe in a reflexive, conversational, social and democratic science. I believe
that by humbling science we can elevate it. Allowing room and space for public
engagement, by removing issues of inaccessibility or misleading narratives as best we
can and speaking clearly, honestly, and humbly about what we believe based on what we
see, will be, I think the kindest and most important ways to take on and work out that
which is difficult and harmful. And we must do this communally, democratically,
together, as one.

158

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Appendices
Appendix 1: Plastic Words Characteristics..................................................................... 168
Appendix 2: Full Description of King Saloman’s House ............................................... 171
Appendix 3: Executive Order 13112 .............................................................................. 177
Appendix 4: Five-Year Review of Executive Order 13112 on Invasive Species (2005) 178
Appendix 5: Invasive Species Definition Clarification and Guidance White Paper (2006)
......................................................................................................................................... 179
Appendix 6: The Standard Operating Procedures for the Rapid Screening of Species’
Risk of Establishment and Impact in the United States (2016) ...................................... 180
Appendix 7: Executive Order 13751 Safeguarding the Nation from the Impacts of
Invasive Species (2016) .................................................................................................. 181
Appendix 8: Management Plan Report Card (2017) ...................................................... 182
Appendix 9: A Brief Overview of the Federal Trade Commission's Investigative and Law
Enforcement Authority (2008) ........................................................................................ 183
Appendix 10: Federal Trade Commission Draft Strategic Plan (2017).......................... 184
Appendix 11: Survey Document Preamble..................................................................... 185
Appendix 12: Survey Questions ..................................................................................... 187
Appendix 13: Semi-Formal Interview Questions ........................................................... 188

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Appendix 1: Plastic Words Characteristics
A. Origin and Usage
1. The speaker lacks the power of definition; the words do not acquire meaning or
nuance from their contexts.
2. As “context-autonomous” words that do not depend on their connections, they
superficially resemble the terms of science, but lack the precisely defined meanings of
such terms, and their freedom from associations. The use of the same word inside and
outside science leads to the assumption of kinship, and to the words becoming
independent norms. In the vernacular, these nephews of science become stereotypes.
3. As a rule they originate in the vernacular, are adopted and reshaped by some brand of
science, and then, like returning émigrés, rejoin the vernacular.
4. They have the character of metaphors inasmuch as they link the heterogeneous
spheres of science and everyday life. They are distinct from metaphors in that they no
longer evoke any image; they do not, like other comparisons, indicate their origin.
5. This makes their capacity to alter and illuminate their objects even more powerful.
The less obvious their metaphorical character, the less it is noticed, and the more
effectively it works. These words become commonsense, background concepts in our
thinking.
B. Scope
6. The words surface in countless contexts. Their application is limited hardly at all by
space or time.
7. They squeeze out and replace a wealth of synonyms. Synonyms after all are not words
whose meaning is the same but whose meaning is similar, words with as many delicate
differences and shadings as there are contexts. Before plastic words one knew which
synonym belonged in which factual or social context. Now there is a “jack of all trades,”
a word that serves the whole world.
8. They squeeze out and replace the verbum proprium, which precisely “fits” in a given
context, with a nonspecific word.
9. They fill silences and replace indirect ways of speaking, exposing delicacy and tact to
the action of stereotyped generalities.
C. Content
10. When we seek to grasp the meaning of the words, through their content rather than
their sphere of influence, it comes down to a single characteristic. They manifest the
logical law of the inverse proportionality of extension and intention: the broader the
application, the smaller the content; the poorer the content, the larger the application.
They are words that reduce a gigantic area to a common denominator. They put forward a
universal claim, with a reduced and impoverished content.
11. In other words, the object spoken about, the referent, is not easy to grasp; the words
are poor in substance, if not altogether without substance.
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12. They seem to resemble the concepts of postclassical physics: purely imaginary,
meaningless, self-referential, and functioning only as stackable poker chips. Is language
being undermined in parallel with the use of these poker chips in the thought structures of
mathematics and physics?
D. History as Nature
13. The words lack a historical dimension; they are embedded in no particular time or
place. In that sense they are shallow; they are new and they don’t taste of anything.
14. They reinterpret history as nature and transform it into a laboratory.
15. They dispense with questions of good and evil and cause them to disappear.
E. Power of Connotation and Function
16. Connotation dominates, spreading out in expanding waves. In place of the power of
denotation, they provide an experience of counterfeit enlightenment.
17. Their connotation is positive; they formulate a property or deliver the illusion of an
insight.
18. In their usage the function of the discourse dominates, not its content. These words
are more like an instrument of subjugation than like a tool of freedom.
F. General Function
19. By means of their limitless generality they give the impression of filling a gap and of
satisfying a need that had not previously existed. In other words, they awaken a need.
They reduce all domains to a common denominator and sound an imperative and
futuristic note. The words seem to demand that these domains adjust themselves to the
words and not vice versa. They draw attention to deficits.
20. Their asocial and ahistorical naturalness reinforces this demand.
21. Their powerful aura of associations demands action.
22. Their many-sided generality brings about consensus.
G. Social and Economic Usefulness
23. Their use distinguishes the speaker from the unremarkable world of the everyday and
raises his social prestige; they serve him as rungs on the social ladder.
24. They carry the authority of science into the vernacular: they enforce silence. (In the
GDR Marxist-Leninist science was already monumentalized by being the explicit
foundation of the state structure. In the Federal Republic the scientific vocabulary pushed
itself into a comparable position as an instrument for awakening economic needs.)
25. These words form a bridge to the world of experts. Their content is actually no more
than a white spot, but they transmit the “aura” of another world, in which one can obtain
information about them. They anchor, in the vernacular, the need for experts. They are
pregnant with money. They command resources, and, in the hands of experts, become
resources.
26. They can be freely combined, and they are eager to increase themselves through
derivation and the creation of compounds. This modular capacity makes them an ideal
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instrument in the hands of experts interested in the speedy manufacture of models of
reality.
H. Time and Place of Dissemination
27. Their scientifically authorized objectivity and universality make the older words of
the vernacular appear ideological. A word like “communication” makes alternatives –
conversation, discussion, gossip suddenly appear out of date.
28. The words appear as a new type. In recent history such newcomers have evidently
been introduced in each epoch. The type in vogue in the 1930s is not the type in vogue in
the 1990s.
29. This vocabulary, even if it appears at slightly different times in different places, is
international.
I. Connection to Making Oneself Understood without Words
30. The words cannot be made clearer by tone of voice, pantomime, or gesture, and
cannot be replaced by these.

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Appendix 2: Full Description of King Saloman’s House
“God bless thee, my son; I will give thee the greatest jewel I have. For I will impart unto
thee, for the love of God and men, a relation of the true state of Salomon’s House. Son, to
make you know the true state of Salomon’s House, I will keep this order. First, I will set
forth unto you the end of our foundation. Secondly, the preparations and instruments we
have for our works. Thirdly, the several employments and functions whereto our fellows
are assigned. And fourthly, the ordinances and rites which we observe. “The end of our
foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of
the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible. “The Preparations and
Instruments are these. We have large and deep caves of several depths: the deepest are
sunk six hundred fathom: and some of them are digged and made under great hills and
mountains: so that if you reckon together the depth of the hill and the depth of the cave,
they are (some of them) above three miles deep. For we find, that the depth of a hill, and
the depth of a cave from the flat, is the same thing; both remote alike, from the sun and
heaven’s beams, and from the open air. These caves we call the Lower Region; and we
use them for all coagulations, indurations, refrigerations, and conservations of bodies. We
use them likewise for the imitation of natural mines; and the producing also of new
artificial metals, by compositions and materials which we use, and lay there for many
years. We use them also sometimes, (which may seem strange,) for curing of some
diseases, and for prolongation of life in some hermits that choose to live there, well
accommodated of all things necessary, and indeed live very long; by whom also we learn
many things. “We have burials in several earths, where we put diverse cements, as the
Chineses do their porcellain. But we have them in greater variety, and some of them more
fine. We have also great variety of composts and soils, for the making of the earth
fruitful. “We have high towers; the highest about half a mile in height; and some of them
likewise set upon high mountains; so that the vantage of the hill with the tower is in the
highest of them three miles at least. And these places we call the Upper Region;
accounting the air between the high places and the low, as a Middle Region. We use these
towers, according to their several heights, and situations, for insolation, refrigeration,
conservation; and for the view of divers meteors; as winds, rain, snow, hail; and some of
the fiery meteors also. And upon them, in some places, are dwellings of hermits, whom
we visit sometimes, and instruct what to observe. “We have great lakes, both salt, and
fresh; whereof we have use for the fish and fowl. We use them also for burials of some
natural bodies: for we find a difference in things buried in earth or in air below the earth,
and things buried in water. We have also pools, of which some do strain fresh water out
of salt; and others by art do turn fresh water into salt. We have also some rocks in the
midst of the sea, and some bays upon the shore for some works, wherein is required the
air and vapor of the sea. We have likewise violent streams and cataracts, which serve us
for many motions: and likewise engines for multiplying and enforcing of winds, to set
also on going diverse motions. “We have also a number of artificial wells and fountains,
made in imitation of the natural sources and baths; as tincted upon vitriol, sulphur, steel,
brass, lead, nitre, and other minerals. And again we have little wells for infusions of
many things, where the waters take the virtue quicker and better, than in vessels or
basins. And amongst them we have a water which we call Water of Paradise, being, by
that we do to it made very sovereign for health, and prolongation of life. “We have also
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great and spacious houses where we imitate and demonstrate meteors; as snow, hail, rain,
some artificial rains of bodies and not of water, thunders, lightnings; also generations of
bodies in air; as frogs, flies, and divers others. “We have also certain chambers, which we
call Chambers of Health, where we qualify the air as we think good and proper for the
cure of divers diseases, and preservation of health. “We have also fair and large baths, of
several mixtures, for the cure of diseases, and the restoring of man’s body from
arefaction: and others for the confirming of it in strength of sinewes, vital parts, and the
very juice and substance of the body. “We have also large and various orchards and
gardens; wherein we do not so much respect beauty, as variety of ground and soil, proper
for divers trees and herbs: and some very spacious, where trees and berries are set
whereof we make divers kinds of drinks, besides the vineyards. In these we practise
likewise all conclusions of grafting, and inoculating as well of wild-trees as fruit-trees,
which produceth many effects. And we make (by art) in the same orchards and gardens,
trees and flowers to come earlier or later than their seasons; and to come up and bear
more speedily than by their natural course they do. We make them also by art greater
much than their nature; and their fruit greater and sweeter and of differing taste, smell,
colour, and figure, from their nature. And many of them we so order, as they become of
medicinal use.
“We have also means to make divers plants rise by mixtures of earths without seeds; and
likewise to make divers new plants, differing from the vulgar; and to make one tree or
plant turn into another. “We have also parks and enclosures of all sorts of beasts and
birds which we use not only for view or rareness, but likewise for dissections and trials;
that thereby we may take light what may be wrought upon the body of man. Wherein we
find many strange effects; as continuing life in them, though divers parts, which you
account vital, be perished and taken forth; resuscitating of some that seem dead in
appearance; and the like. We try also all poisons and other medicines upon them, as well
of chirurgery, as physic. By art likewise, we make them greater or taller than their kind
is; and contrariwise dwarf them, and stay their growth: we make them more fruitful and
bearing than their kind is; and contrariwise barren and not generative. Also we make
them differ in colour, shape, activity, many ways. We find means to make commixtures
and copulations of different kinds; which have produced many new kinds, and them not
barren, as the general opinion is. We make a number of kinds of serpents, worms, flies,
fishes, of putrefaction; whereof some are advanced (in effect) to be perfect creatures, like
bests or birds; and have sexes, and do propagate. Neither do we this by chance, but we
know beforehand, of what matter and commixture what kind of those creatures will arise.
“We have also particular pools, where we make trials upon fishes, as we have said before
of beasts and birds. “We have also places for breed and generation of those kinds of
worms and flies which are of special use; such as are with you your silk-worms and bees.
“I will not hold you long with recounting of our brewhouses, bake-houses, and kitchens,
where are made divers drinks, breads, and meats, rare and of special effects. Wines we
have of grapes; and drinks of other juice of fruits, of grains, and of roots; and of mixtures
with honey, sugar, manna, and fruits dried, and decocted; Also of the tears or woundings
of trees; and of the pulp of canes. And these drinks are of several ages, some to the age or
last of forty years. We have drinks also brewed with several herbs, and roots, and spices;
yea with several fleshes, and white-meats; whereof some of the drinks are such, as they
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are in effect meat and drink both: so that divers, especially in age, do desire to live with
them, with little or no meat or bread. And above all, we strive to have drink of extreme
thin parts, to insinuate into the body, and yet without all biting, sharpness, or fretting;
insomuch as some of them put upon the back of your hand will, with a little stay, pass
through to the palm, and yet taste mild to the mouth. We have also waters which we ripen
in that fashion, as they become nourishing; so that they are indeed excellent drink;
and.many will use no other. Breads we have of several grains, roots, and kernels; yea and
some of flesh and fish dried; with divers kinds of leavenings and seasonings: so that some
do extremely move appetites; some do nourish so, as divers do live of them, without any
other meat; who live very long. So for meats, we have some of them so beaten and made
tender and mortified,’ yet without all corrupting, as a weak heat of the stomach will turn
them into good chylus; as well as a strong heat would meat otherwise prepared. We have
some meats also and breads and drinks, which taken by men enable them to fast long
after; and some other, that used make the very flesh of men’s bodies sensibly’ more hard
and tough and their strength far greater than otherwise it would be.
“We have dispensatories, or shops of medicines. Wherein you may easily think, if we
have such variety of plants and living creatures more than you have in Europe, (for we
know what you have,) the simples, drugs, and ingredients of medicines, must likewise be
in so much the greater variety. We have them likewise of divers ages, and long
fermentations. And for their preparations, we have not only all manner of exquisite
distillations and separations, and especially by gentle heats and percolations through
divers strainers, yea and substances; but also exact forms of composition, whereby they
incorporate almost, as they were natural simples. “We have also divers mechanical arts,
which you have not; and stuffs made by them; as papers, linen, silks, tissues; dainty
works of feathers of wonderful lustre; excellent dies, and, many others; and shops
likewise, as well for such as are not brought into vulgar use amongst us as for those that
are. For you must know that of the things before recited, many of them are grown into
use throughout the kingdom; but yet, if they did flow from our invention, we have of
them also for patterns and principals. “We have also furnaces of great diversities, and that
keep great diversity of heats; fierce and quick; strong and constant; soft and mild; blown,
quiet; dry, moist; and the like. But above all, we have heats, in imitation of the Sun’s and
heavenly bodies’ heats, that pass divers inequalities, and (as it were) orbs, progresses, and
returns, whereby we produce admirable effects. Besides, we have heats of dungs; and of
bellies and maws of living creatures, and of their bloods and bodies; and of hays and
herbs laid up moist; of lime unquenched; and such like. Instruments also which generate
heat only by motion. And farther, places for strong insulations; and again, places under
the earth, which by nature, or art, yield heat. These divers heats we use, as the nature of
the operation, which we intend, requireth. “We have also perspective-houses, where we
make demonstrations of all lights and radiations; and of all colours: and out of things
uncoloured and transparent, we can represent unto you all several colours; not in rainbows, (as it is in gems, and prisms,) but of themselves single. We represent also all
multiplications of light, which we carry to great distance, and make so sharp as to discern
small points and lines. Also all colourations of light; all delusions and deceits of the sight,
in figures, magnitudes, motions, colours all demonstrations of shadows. We find also
divers means, yet unknown to you, of producing of light originally from divers bodies.
We procure means of seeing objects afar off; as in the heaven and remote places; and
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represent things near as afar off; and things afar off as near; making feigned distances.
We have also helps for the sight, far above spectacles and glasses in use. We have also
glasses and means to see small and minute bodies perfectly and distinctly; as the shapes
and colours of small flies and worms, grains and flaws in gems, which cannot otherwise
be seen, observations in urine and blood not otherwise to be seen. We make artificial
rain-bows, halo’s, and circles about light. We represent also all manner of reflexions,
refractions, and multiplications of visual beams of objects. “We have also precious stones
of all kinds, many of them of great beauty, and to you unknown; crystals likewise; and
glasses of divers kinds; and amongst them some of metals vitrificated, and other materials
besides those of which you make glass. Also a number of fossils, and imperfect minerals,
which you have not. Likewise loadstones of prodigious virtue; and other rare stones, both
natural and artificial.
“We have also sound-houses, where we practise and demonstrate all sounds, and their
generation. We have harmonies which you have not, of quarter-sounds, and lesser slides
of sounds. Divers instruments of music likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any
you have, together with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet. We represent small
sounds as great and deep; likewise great sounds extenuate and sharp; we make divers
tremblings and warblings of sounds, which in their original are entire. We represent and
imitate all articulate sounds and letters, and the voices and notes of beasts and birds. We
have certain helps which set to the ear do further the hearing greatly. We have also divers
strange and artificial echoes, reflecting the voice many times, and as it were tossing it:
and some that give back the voice louder than it came, some shriller, and some deeper;
yea, some rendering the voice differing in the letters or articulate sound from that they
receive. We have also means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and
distances. “We have also perfume-houses; wherewith we join also practices of taste. We
multiply smells, which may seem strange. We imitate smells, making all smells to
breathe outs of other mixtures than those that give them. We make divers imitations of
taste likewise, so that they will deceive any man’s taste. And in this house we contain
also a confiture-house; where we make all sweet-meats, dry and moist; and divers
pleasant wines, milks, broths, and sallets; in far greater variety than you have. “We have
also engine-houses, where are prepared engines and instruments for all sorts of motions.
There we imitate and practise to make swifter motions than any you have, either out of
your muskets or any engine that you have: and to make them and multiply them more
easily, and with small force, by wheels and other means: and to make them stronger and
more violent than yours are; exceeding your greatest cannons and basilisks. We represent
also ordnance and instruments of war, and engines of all kinds: and likewise new
mixtures and compositions of gun-powder, wild-fires burning in water, and
unquenchable. Also fireworks of all variety both for pleasure and use. We imitate also
flights of birds; we have some degrees of flying in the air. We have ships and boats for
going under water, and brooking of seas; also swimming-girdles and supporters. We have
divers curious clocks, and other like motions of return: and some perpetual motions. We
imitate also motions of living creatures, by images, of men, beasts, birds, fishes, and
serpents. We have also a great number of other various motions, strange for equality,
fineness, and subtilty. “We have also a mathematical house, where are represented all
instruments, as well of geometry as astronomy, exquisitely made. “We have also houses
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of deceits of the senses; where we represent all manner of feats of juggling, false
apparitions, impostures, and illusions; and their fallacies. And surely you will easily
believe that we that have so many things truly natural which induce admiration, could in
a world of particulars deceive the senses, if we would disguise those things and labour to
make them seem more miraculous. But we do hate all impostures, and lies; insomuch as
we have severely forbidden it to all our fellows, under pain of ignominy and fines, that
they do not show any natural work or thing, adorned or swelling; but only pure as it is,
and without all affectation of strangeness.
“These are (my son) the riches of Salomon’s House. “For the several employments and
offices of our fellows; we have twelve that sail into foreign countries, under the names of
other nations, (for our own we conceal); who bring us the books, and abstracts, and
patterns of experiments of all other parts. These we call Merchants of Light. “We have
three that collect the experiments which are in all books. These we call Depredators. “We
have three that collect the experiments of all mechanical arts; and also of liberal sciences;
and also of practices which are not brought into arts. These we call Mystery-men. “We
have three that try new experiments, such as themselves think good. These we call
Pioneers or Miners. “We have three that draw the experiments of the former four into
titles and tables, to give the better light for the drawing of observations and axioms out of
them. These we call Compilers. “We have three that bend themselves, looking into the
experiments of their fellows, and cast about how to draw out of them things of use and
practise for man’s life, and knowledge, as well for works as for plain demonstration of
causes, means of natural divinations, and the easy and clear discovery of the virtues and
parts of bodies. These we call Dowry-men or Benefactors. “Then after divers meetings
and consults of our whole number, to consider of the former labours and collections, we
have three that take care, out of them, to direct new experiments, of a higher light, more
penetrating into nature than the former. These we call Lamps. “We have three others that
do execute the experiments so directed, and report them. These we call Inoculators.
“Lastly, we have three that raise the former discoveries by experiments into greater
observations, axioms, and aphorisms. These we call Interpreters of Nature. “We have
also, as you must think, novices and apprentices, that the succession of the former
employed men do not fail; besides, a great number of servants and attendants, men and
women. And this we do also: we have consultations, which of the inventions and
experiences which we have discovered shall be published, and which not: and take all an
oath of secrecy, for the concealing of those which we think fit to keep secret: though
some of those we do reveal sometimes to the state and some not. “For our ordinances and
rites: we have two very long and fair galleries: in one of these we place patterns and
samples of all manner of the more rare and excellent inventions in the other we place the
statues of all principal inventors. There we have the statue of your Columbus, that
discovered the West Indies: also the inventor of ships: your monk that was the inventor of
ordnance and of gunpowder: the inventor of music: the inventor of letters: the inventor of
printing: the inventor of observations of astronomy: the inventor of works in metal: the
inventor of glass: the inventor of silk of the worm: the inventor of wine: the inventor of
corn and bread: the inventor of sugars: and all these, by more certain tradition than you
have. Then have we divers inventors of our own, of excellent works; which since you
have not seen, it were too long to make descriptions of them; and besides, in the right
understanding of those descriptions you might easily err. For upon every invention of
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value, we erect a statue to the inventor, and give him a liberal and honourable reward.
These statues are some of brass; some of marble and touch-stone; some of cedar and
other special woods gilt and adorned; some of iron; some of silver; some of gold. “We
have certain hymns and services, which we say daily, of Lord and thanks to God for his
marvellous works: and forms of prayers, imploring his aid and blessing for the
illumination of our labours, and the turning of them into good and holy uses. “Lastly, we
have circuits or visits of divers principal cities of the kingdom; where, as it cometh to
pass, we do publish such new profitable inventions as we think good. And we do also
declare natural divinations of diseases, plagues, swarms-of hurtful creatures, scarcity,
tempests, earthquakes, great inundations, comets, temperature of the year, and divers
other things; and we give counsel thereupon, what the people shall do for the prevention
and remedy of them.” And when he had said this, he stood up; and I, as I had been taught,
kneeled down, and he laid his right hand upon my head, and said; “God bless thee, my
son; and God bless this relation, which I have made. I give thee leave to publish it for the
good of other nations; for we here are in God’s bosom, a land unknown.” And so he left
me; having assigned a value of about two thousand ducats, for a bounty to me and my
fellows. For they give great largesses where they come upon all occasions. [The rest was
not perfected.]” (Bacon, 1627: 71-83).

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Appendix 3: Executive Order 13112
In 1999, the president of the United States of America created, in collaboration,
Executive Order 13112 to bring to light and address how non-native species upset certain
perceived harmonies between human, plant, animal, and land. This document begins by
defining terms that will be used, establishes the Invasive Species Council (ISC) and
explains its duties, and requests the first National Invasive Species Management Plan
(NISMP) which will be continually reviewed henceforth, and ends by explaining the
purpose of this Executive Order and revoking previous incompatible Executive Orders.
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1999-02-08/html/99-3184.htm

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Appendix 4: Five-Year Review of Executive Order 13112 on Invasive Species (2005)
This document is released every five years and is a review of the 1999 Executive Order
(EO) 13112. This document assesses how effective the EO is and whether or not it should
be revised. It summarizes EO 13112, explains and defines invasive species as they are
perceived today, and examines how well the EO 13112 holds up. It examines the
particular roles both the Invasive Species Advisory Committee (ISAC) and the NISC
have, budgets, and various prevention measures. The conclusion of this report suggests
that the NISC is working well to meet certain goals outlined in the EO 13112, and that in
future the NISC will be able to address invasive species more effectively, despite
challenges in interagency collaboration. It argues that Executive Order 13112 should be
maintained.
https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/docs/council/fiveyearreview.pdf

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Appendix 5: Invasive Species Definition Clarification and Guidance White Paper
(2006)
This document defines invasive species while acknowledging the difficulty of defining
invasive species. It explains that “harm” is subjective and certain people may find a
species harmful while other people may find that species beneficial. It suggests negative
effects shall outweigh beneficial effects of a non-native species to deem it invasive. It
discusses what is meant by native and non-native, how federal non-native species are
more often potentially invasive than domestic non-native species, how a certain region
may have negative effects from a non-native species while another, nearby region may
have beneficial effects, and describes the various types of harm invasive species can
inflict on: the environment, human health, natural resources, and recreational avenues.
https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/docs/council/isacdef.pdf

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Appendix 6: The Standard Operating Procedures for the Rapid Screening of Species’
Risk of Establishment and Impact in the United States (2016)
This document describes a streamlined Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to screen the
potential risk of a non-native species. This procedure, if done properly, helps determine if
a species can be labeled as “invasive” which would warrant regulatory action such as
preventative measures or attempted eradication of that species. It describes who is best fit
to perform these procedures, and on what sorts of species. It defines invasive species, and
explains the difficulty in defining invasive species. It describes the purpose of the paper
as to be guidelines for a procedure that can be replicated. It discusses difficulties in
streamlining such a process. It describes the appropriate format by which a successfully
enacted analysis should adhere to, including information on: nativity of species,
ecological and biological information, impacts of introduction, global distribution, US
distribution, climate matching, certainty of assessment, risk assessment, and references. It
offers an example of a successfully conducted risk assessment procedure as a template.
https://www.fws.gov/injuriouswildlife/pdf_files/ERSS-SOP-Final-Version.pdf

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Appendix 7: Executive Order 13751 Safeguarding the Nation from the Impacts of
Invasive Species (2016)
This document from 2016 amends the Executive Order 13112, by expanding the NISC,
clarifying NISC duties, reviewing and clarifying subjective invasive species definitions,
and incorporates new technologies, changing climates, and other contemporary
divergences from EO 13112. It defines terms used in the document, describes federal
agency duties, assesses new emerging priorities and makes various amendments to EO
13112.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/12/08/2016-29519/safeguarding-thenation-from-the-impacts-of-invasive-species

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Appendix 8: Management Plan Report Card (2017)
This is a brief outline of the current plan for handling invasive species and their effects on
humans, regions, economies.
https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/uploads/management_plan_report_card_2017_int
erim.pdf

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Appendix 9: A Brief Overview of the Federal Trade Commission's Investigative and
Law Enforcement Authority (2008)
This document explores the regulations, expectations, roles and investigative procedures
of the law enforcement branch that deals with issues within the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC). It begins by describing elements of the FTC act, then elaborates on
how to handle a variety of unfair business practices that harm consumers.
https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/what-we-do/enforcement-authority

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Appendix 10: Federal Trade Commission Draft Strategic Plan (2017)
This is a detailed outline of a three-part plan for 1) protecting consumers against unfair
business practices, 2) promoting competition in the marketplace, and 3) generally
strengthening the FTC’s reach and scope through strategic dissemination of information.
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/attachments/press-releases/ftc-releases-draft-strategicplan-fiscal-years-2018-2022/draftstratplanfy18-22.pdf

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Appendix 11: Survey Document Preamble
Please read the following document and respond to the questions provided. You may
want to read the questions before reading the document:
Preamble: Executive Order 13112 – defines an invasive species as “an alien species
whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to
human health.” In the Executive Summary of the National Invasive Species Management
Plan (NISMP) the term invasive species is further clarified and defined as “a species that
is non-native to the ecosystem under consideration and whose introduction causes or is
likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.” To provide
guidance for the development and implementation of the NISMP, the National Invasive
Species Council (NISC) and the Invasive Species Advisory Committee (ISAC) adopted a
set of principles outlined in Appendix 6 of the NISMP. Guiding Principle #1 provides
additional context for defining the term invasive species and states “many alien species
are non-invasive and support human livelihoods or a preferred quality of life.” However,
some alien species (non-native will be used in this white paper because it is more
descriptive than alien), for example West Nile virus, are considered invasive and
undesirable by virtually everyone. Other non-native species are not as easily
characterized. For example, some nonnative species are considered harmful, and
therefore, invasive by some sectors of our society while others consider them beneficial.
This discontinuity is reflective of the different value systems operating in our free
society, and contributes to the complexity of defining the term invasive species. NISC is
engaged in evaluating and updating the 2001 NISMP and is developing comments for a
revised action plan as required by the EO 13112. While there have been numerous
attempts to clarify the term invasive species, there continues to be uncertainty concerning
the use and perceived meaning of the term, and consequently over the prospective scope
of actions proposed in the NISMP. Options related to private property use, pet ownership,
agriculture, horticulture, and aquaculture enterprises may be affected depending upon the
definition, use, and policy implications of the term. In particular, the desire to consider a
non-native species as ‘invasive’ may trigger a risk/benefit assessment process to
determine whether regulatory action is warranted. All these uncertainties have stood and
could continue to stand in the way of progress in actions and policy development to
prevent new invasions and manage existing invasive species. While it is not the purpose
of this white paper to define a risk/benefit assessment process, development of such a
process must be open and efficient to minimize the uncertainties. This white paper is
intended to provide a non-regulatory policy interpretation of the term invasive species by
identifying what is meant, and just as important, what is not meant by the term. ISAC
recognizes that biological and ecological definitions will not precisely apply to regulatory
definitions. We believe, however, that our clarification will apply to all taxa of invasive
species in all habitats and furthermore, our explanation will be functional and acceptable
to most stakeholders. ISAC simply wants to clarify what is meant and what is not meant
by the term invasive species in the technical sense and to provide insight into those areas
where societal judgments will be necessary to implement effective public policy. The
utility of our clarification should be in education, conflict resolution, and efficiency in the
planning, prevention, control/eradication, and management of invasive species.
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Appendix 12: Survey Questions
1. On a scale of 1-10 where 1 stands for not very familiar and 10 stands for very
familiar, how familiar are you with the way invasive species are talked about?
2. On a scale of 1-10 where 1 stands for very easy and 10 stands for very difficult,
how easy or difficult was it for you to read and understand this document?
3. Which sections or sentences in this document are easiest to understand? Copy and
paste portions here.
4. Which sections or sentences of this document are most difficult to understand?
Copy and paste portions here.
5. List 3 to 5 words or phrases used in this document that are easier to understand or
otherwise straight-forward. (You may chose words or phrases from your answer
to question number 3).
6. List 3 to 5 words or phrases used in the document that are more difficult to
understand or otherwise confusing. (You may chose words or phrases from your
answer to question number 4).
7. Define what you think the words or phrases you chose for question 6 mean.
8. Briefly summarize what you think is being said in this paragraph.
9. Define invasive species in your own words.

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Appendix 13: Semi-Formal Interview Questions
Can you explain to me in more detail how you would prepare and explain environmental
impacts and statements?
While preparing environmental impacts and studies, were there certain inaccessible
words, phrases, or ways of explanation that you would look for to replace?
What are a few examples, and what did you replaces those words or phrases with?
What did you find to be the most difficult part in preparing these documents?
What was the easiest?
Were there certain documents you felt that you were unable to make appropriately
accessible? If so, why?
I would like to see an example of a document before you and your team worked on it and
after you and your team worked on it. Unless you give me your permission, I will not
share this document with anyone, or use it in my thesis. I would like to see these “before”
and “after” documents so I can discern if I have any other questions I’d like to ask about
this work.
I’d also like to know a little bit more about the scientific writing you did, specifically
what did you write about and who did you write it for?

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Item sets

The Evergreen State College Masters Theses: Environmental Studies

Media

Follmann_Thesis_2018.pdf