Open AccessWhat something is called does matter
Author(s) -
Jordan Benjamin R.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
eos, transactions american geophysical union
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.316
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 2324-9250
pISSN - 0096-3941
DOI - 10.1029/2006eo290008
Subject(s) - perspective (graphical) , order (exchange) , space (punctuation) , epistemology , engineering ethics , engineering , philosophy , computer science , economics , linguistics , finance , artificial intelligence
My comments are prompted by a seemingly innocuous Eos meeting report on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's (JPL) Small Bodies Educator Conference ( Eos , 87(8), 2006). While I applaud the efforts that JPL and others go to in order to train educators and to educate the general public on advances in Earth and space science, I nonetheless take issue with the idea that, as it was reported educators were told, “what we call something is not really important.” This is an entirely specious claim, and I find it disturbing that such a perspective should ever find general acceptance.