Two quotes from two great thinkers. The first is from philosopher of science Karl Popper, from his intellectual autobiography Unended Quest:
Never let yourself be goaded into taking seriously problems about words and their meanings. What must be taken seriously are questions of fact, and assertions about facts: theories and hypotheses; the problems they solve; and the problems they raise.
The second is from man of letters G.K. Chesterton, from his hilarious novel The Ball and the Cross:
“Well, we won’t quarrel about a word,” said the other, pleasantly.
“Why on earth not?” said MacIan, with a sudden asperity. “Why shouldn’t we quarrel about a word? What is the good of words if they aren’t important enough to quarrel over? Why do we choose one word more than another if there isn’t any difference between them? If you called a woman a chimpanzee instead of an angel, wouldn’t there be a quarrel about a word? If you’re not going to argue about words, what are you going to argue about? Are you going to convey your meaning to me by moving your ears? The Church and the heresies always used to fight about words, because they are only things worth fighting about.”
What say you? Chesterton or Popper? I think I tend to side with Chesterton…
Words are important, after all, if you are engaged in a discussion then you will not get very far if the two of you mean something completely different by the same word. But unless you are a philologist then debates over words should never be the most important thing.
Science is about theories (explanations) and the evidence that tests those theories. Nevertheless, a lot of work in science goes into classification – defining the meanings of words for classes of things. Think of the taxonomy of living things, geological strata, the Periodic Table. These are important and many people put a lot of work into these things. But it is done only to support the real business of science – creating and testing theories.