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OBSERVER
The Loaded Language of Science
By JOAN M. HERBERS
I study ants. In recent years
I've focused my research on so-called "slavemaking ants"
— species known for invading the colonies of other ant
species, stealing their larvae and pupae, and killing those
defending ants that try to protect their colony. The marauders
then raise the stolen larvae and pupae as their own. Once fully
grown into adult worker ants, those kidnapped "slaves"
are put to work for their captors. This highly evolved behavior
is fascinating to watch, and has become an important model of
antagonistic co-evolution — the arms race between parasite
and host that results in ever-accelerating adaptations to each
other.
The problem is our scientific
jargon. I have been repeatedly surprised by reactions to my
use of the term "slavemaking" to define behavior and
of "slave" to define the status of the captured ants
in their captors' nests. On several occasions, individuals objected
(usually after public talks, interviews with reporters, and
scientific presentations, and usually anonymously) to the slave
metaphor, and on many others I have been asked what my studies
of ants tell us about the human condition (the answer to the
latter is easy: nothing).
I did not invent this jargon,
but I have certainly used it without thinking. Dulosis is the
technical term, derived from the Greek doulos, or slave, and
these terms have been in use to describe entomological phenomena
for some 200 years (check out The Oxford English Dictionary).
Given its long history of usage, and by no less august a figure
than Charles Darwin himself, what is the problem?
I posed that question to a colleague
who specializes in rhetorical studies of (human) slave narratives
from the 18th and 19th centuries. She responded crisply: "We
should be able to study ants without being reminded of race,
for crying out loud," and then introduced me to Toni Morrison's
essay collection Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary
Imagination. Morrison suggests that an analysis of American
literature is incomplete unless it confronts the essential truth
that our writers have been immersed in a racialized society.
Her discussion of how inattention to racial constructs has hampered
literary criticism led me to consider the problem of how our
use of loaded jargon might affect the scientific enterprise
itself.
I, too, became uneasy with the
slavery metaphor, and concluded that it might even be affecting
my discipline's struggle to recruit scientists of color. That
we have failed to attract young blacks, Hispanics, and Native
Americans to science careers is indisputable, and has varying
causes. Now I must confront the uncomfortable truth that our
very jargon may be part of the problem: By appropriating the
terminology of slavery, we scientists are in fact perpetuating
racism. How can we (overwhelmingly white) scientists casually
talk about slavemaking ants, with implicit messages of power,
inequity, and subjugation, without recognizing that our very
language is a powerful deterrent to recruiting descendants of
slaves to appreciate our scientific work?
Discussing this issue with colleagues
has provoked both bemusement and hostility. The most common
reaction is that these words are part of our language and should
not be considered offensive since we do not imply any parallel
between what insects do and what humans continue to do around
the globe; furthermore, the slave metaphor is a common one.
I assert that a corollary to those arguments is that individuals
who feel offended, even vaguely, are the ones with the problems.
But that attitude completely sidesteps
Morrison's main point, when she calls for "a serious intellectual
effort to see what racial ideology does to the mind, imagination,
and behavior of masters." We must be open to the possibility
that using racially loaded metaphors is inherently damaging
to ourselves and to our work.
Fortunately, there is a precedent
in behavioral ecology for just this kind of self-examination.
For decades, biologists filed reports of sexual behavior in
many animals that involved males forcing copulation on females.
A quick review of the literature from the 1970s and early 1980s
shows that biologists used the word "rape" to describe
that behavior. However, a large, vocal group of feminist scientists
protested the use of that metaphor, with the result that the
term "rape" was rapidly dropped and replaced by "forced
copulation." In other words, scientists who understood
the emotional impact of words on themselves, on female colleagues,
students, and the public changed their jargon.
So too do I now call for biologists
to discard the use of slave metaphors to describe insect behavior.
Not only are the terms damaging, but in fact they are not particularly
accurate. Unlike human slaves, captive worker ants cannot breed,
nor are they sold to other captors. Instead, the predatory species
must repeatedly raid colonies to replenish its work force; indeed,
voracious colonies can overexploit their captives and engender
their own demise when there is no one left to do the work.
I propose, then, that we adopt
a pirate metaphor to replace the slavery jargon. Human pirates
engage in behavior much like the ants I study: They attack ships
to steal cargo, usually inflicting considerable mortality among
the defending crew. We can therefore write about pirate ants,
captive ants, raiding parties, and booty. Since we scientists
love jargon, I further propose that we call this "leistic"
behavior, from the Greek leistos for "pirate."
So pirate ants and leistic behavior
it is, at least in my own publications, discussions with journalists,
and presentations to the public. Piracy on the high seas or
in clandestine software mills is illegal, and we can safely
apply this metaphor to insects without perpetuating social injustice.
In fact, biologists have discussed pirate perches, pirate spiders,
and pirate crabs with impunity, and pirates the world over surely
will not object to pirate ants.
Scientists like to think their
work is unhampered by human conventions, an illusion fostered
by their ignorance of the work of philosophers, historians,
linguists, and rhetoricians who study the scientific enterprise.
I now understand that those delusions of objectivity can hamper
our ability to further the progress to which we are passionately
devoted. Scientists use language, and so must take responsibility
for its rhetorical impact.
Joan M. Herbers is dean of the College of Biological Sciences
and a professor of evolution, ecology, and organismal biology
at Ohio State University at Columbus.
http://chronicle.com
Section: The Chronicle Review
Volume 52, Issue 29, Page B5
Copyright ©
2006 by The Chronicle of Higher Education. Reprinted
here with permission
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