Put them in the box
My late grandmother Dora loved to watch hockey games with us. What she liked best is that misbehaving players had to go “sit in the box.” There is something deeply satisfying about taking something or someone and putting it in a literal or figurative box. This box often has a name, which creates the impression that we better understand the objects in it. More times than not, however, the box is an arbitrary division of what is really a spectrum and its name is just a convenience. Focusing on the divisions between things but not the gradations among them often ends up obscuring, rather than illuminating, reality.
Several years ago there was a public spat over whether Pluto was a “planet.” The solar system is full of bodies of all sizes and compositions. Pluto and several other bodies share characteristics than made it convenient to describe them as a group, the dwarf planets, although it is unclear whether dwarf planets are really distinct from the other planets or just another arbitrary classification within a spectrum. The real issue is whether creating the box “dwarf planet” allows us to know more about dwarf planets as a group or about Pluto as a member of that group. Does it truly make a difference in our understanding of Pluto or of the solar system to call it a dwarf planet rather than simply a planet?
Geology has similar issues. Although there are clear differences between say a basalt and a granite, in actuality they are part of multiple series of rock types that have gradational differences in their chemistry. Seemingly every one of these small variations has a name, destined to bedevil the student trying to learn them. As John McPhee said in Basin and Range, geologists have “an enthusiasm for adding new words to their conversation,” especially when it comes for names for rocks. Does the proliferation of names clarify or obscure our understanding of the differences and similarities among these rocks and the processes of their formation?
There are many time in Earth history when extinction rates have risen; paleontologists debate about which of these is a “mass extinction” and thus how many there were. Jack Sepkoski and Dave Raup famously identified five mass extinctions, leading to the concept of a modern “Sixth Extinction.” But it has been cogently argued that there were only two, perhaps three mass extinctions, whereas others have suggested as many as eighteen. Does the exact number make a difference? Putting the modern extinction in context does not depend on whether it is the sixth, the third, or the nineteenth; we should ignore the question of how many mass extinctions there were and focus instead on the similarities and differences among these episodes and their implications for what is happening today.
This division of spectra into named bins is not simply a matter of semantics. Naming something implicitly suggests it is a real thing, whether it is or not. The shibboleth that there are distinct human races is an example. Another is our political labels. It is possible to be a gun owner who accepts the reality of climate change and favors marijuana legalization. It is just as likely to be someone who simultaneously favors small government and same-sex marriage. Yet the tendency is to label someone “liberal” or “conservative” and ascribe to them a monolithic set of beliefs. Many of us, and our states, are not red or blue but some shade of purple.
I am not against the naming of things, even when the names are somewhat arbitrary. A well-chosen set of names, clearly defined, can be an invaluable aid to communication. But we must avoid the pitfall that putting things in boxes creates a non-existent reality.
