Niche construction

Scientists like to define their terms. They believe that it is imperative to pin down key concepts so as to remove ambiguity as to what they mean, and how they are bounded. Definitions, it is argued, facilitate clear thinking and consensual analysis across scientific communities. Philosophers of science, on the other hand, who prize clear thinking, are frequently sceptical as to whether definitions truly fulfill this function. The trouble is that there is an infinite regress associated with definitions. For instance, the question ‘What is an innovation?’ might elicit a definition ‘a new idea, method or invention’, which invites the corollary question ‘What is an invention?’, in a recursion that could be pursued ad infinitum. What this means in practice is that definitions tend to have a fuzzier existence than most scientists might like to believe. Readers often possess subtly different understandings of a term’s meaning. One reason for this is that it is impossible to anticipate all new findings: think, for example, of the extraordinary complexities that have been discovered about the relationship between DNA base pair sequence and the construction of amino acid chains, and how those discoveries stretched earlier molecular definitions of gene. Definitions can’t pin concepts down in any absolute sense, nor remove all ambiguity, although they can and do help scientists to communicate. Does that mean that scientists are wasting their time searching for definitions? No. Definitions fulfill an important function by guiding research programs. The question to ask when defining a concept is ‘What job do we want it to do?’