Language vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good for Lawyers and Bad for Scientists

A fascinating examination of how we are both played by language and made by language: the science underlying the bugs and features of humankind’s greatest invention.

Language is said to be humankind’s greatest accomplishment. But what is language actually good for? It performs poorly at representing reality. It is a constant source of distraction, misdirection, and overshadowing. In fact, N. J. Enfield notes, language is far better at persuasion than it is at objectively capturing the facts ...