Biosemiotics needs to engage other scientists
Biosemiotics needs to engage other scientists

Summary/Abstract: I had just finished re-reading J. B. S. Haldane’s Daedalus or Science and the Future when Kalevi asked me to write a few informal comments on the “importance of semiotics for biology” for the Tartu meeting. Haldane warns that the paper may be irritating – but irritation has a purpose. He says: “It will be criticized for its undue and unpleasant emphasis on certain topics. Th is is necessary if people are to be induced to think about them, and it is the whole business of a university teacher to induce people to think.” Most biosemioticians would be happy if they could induce biologists to think of more meaningful ways to “make sense” of their data. We all know from our own efforts, that inducing people to think in novel ways is often a useless exercise, especially if they are embedded in highly specialized and well-established disciplines, such as genetics, molecular, and evolutionary biology.

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