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 While Oxford University Press, the British publisher of the Oxford
dictionaries, declared those little smartphone self-portraits its
winner last month, the folks at Merriam-Webster announced "science"
on Tuesday.
Oxford tracked a huge jump in overall usage of selfie, but
Merriam-Webster stuck primarily to look-ups on its website,
recording a 176 percent increase for science when compared with last
year.
"The more we thought about it, the righter it seemed in that it does
lurk behind a lot of big stories that we as a society are grappling
with, whether it's climate change or environmental regulation or
what's in our textbooks," said John Morse, president and publisher
of Merriam-Webster Inc., based in Springfield, Mass.
Science, he said, is connected to broad cultural oppositions —
science versus faith, for instance — along with the power of
observation and intuition, reason and ideology, evidence and
tradition. Of particular note, to Merriam-Webster, anyway, is
fallout from the October release of Malcolm Gladwell's latest book,
"David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling
Giants."
Gladwell, a popularizer of scientific thought and research in
best-sellers and The New Yorker magazine, takes on the challenges of
obstacles and the nature of disabilities and setbacks in the book.
But he leaves science itself — according to some critics — as a
rhetorical device for his main mission of storytelling.
The tweets, blog posts and online commentary about the book — yay
and nay — proliferated as Gladwell hit the road to promote it. Peter
Sokolowski, a lexicographer and editor at large for Merriam-Webster,
called the Gladwell dustup a symptom of where science stands today.
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 With the explosion of information and technology, are we all
scientists? "You have scientists writing long pieces,
purportedly reviews of his new book, basically criticizing him, and
then his response is: 'Hey, buddy. I'm not a scientist. I'm a writer
who's trying to promote the work of scientists. To contextualize it.
To make it accessible.' You know, 'Don't blame me for not being a
scientist' is basically his response," Sokolowski said.
Jason Silva is neither scientist nor academic. He's a "techno
optimist," filmmaker, "performance philosopher" and host of the
popular "Brain Games" show on the National Geographic Channel.
"Ooh, that's awesome," he said upon learning of
science's dictionary shout-out. "People are increasingly
scientifically minded, and that makes me very happy."
Count him among those who believe art and science are two sides of
the same coin. Right now, thanks to the digital ease of sharing
information and the explosion of technology, "The world is infinite.
You can indulge your curiosity."
Are more people looking to science for inspiration, hence looking up
the word on a dictionary website for solace or motivation?
"We bear witness to the astonishing capacities for scientific
knowledge to aid us in transcending our seeming boundaries, to
realize they're not really boundaries," Silva offers. "It's a great
thing. Let's celebrate that."
[Associated
Press; LEANNE ITALIE]
Follow Leanne Italie on
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