The Meaning of ProtoplasmAuthor(s): Roland WalkerSource: The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 83, No. 1 (Jul., 1956), p. 35Published by: American Association for the Advancement of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/21924 .

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LETTERS The Meaning of Protoplasm

As a traditionalist in, language, I rise to the de- fense of the honorable word protoplasm, which was attacked by Garrett Hardin on metalinguistic grounds [Sci. Monthly 82, 112 (1956)]. The pit- falls in language are real, and our own language does have defects of detail (in science teaching we are most plagued by the second meaning of "why?" which invites teleological thought). But we grow up with our language, and at the college level we should be ready to use it effectively, just as any imperfect tool may be skillfully used.

As children we hear such words as good in a wide range of contexts, perhaps even starting with approval of regular elimination; the abstraction with all its varied applications is developed slowly. So a college freshman may meet protoplasm for the first time as an abstraction, naked but for the loin cloth of a definition. The examples cited by Hardin are not all good definitions, but each is a legitimate starting point. From there on, it is the task of student, teacher, and text to develop the concept. To be sure, the word may be postponed. But it is not good merely to describe this molecule, that enzyme, and these processes out of context, as though in vitro. They occur in relationship, in a matrix of organization. If one starts with proto- plasm, there must be analysis, but in the end there should be resynthesis. The same difficulties apply to every integrative concept: organism, evolution, life. But who would throw out the baby with the turbid bathwater of linguistic difficulties? Psy- chologists have dropped mind from many text- books, but this may be partly justified by reaction to a real history of unnecessary mind-brain dual- ism. Protoplasm does not have such a history, and it need not be forced onto one branch of a di- chotomy.

Hardin's talk of the "thinghood" of protoplasm ("it must imply a structure in a bipolarized picture of livingness") is about a straw man of outgrown concepts. Why can the word not grow with the concepts? Certainly protoplasm is not incompatible with the concept of an open system if that is the way protoplasm behaves. All real "things" involve substance, process, and pattern; and the same ap- plies to all real processes and patterns. Our choice of term may legitimately shift with the intended emphasis.

An unfortunate lapse of logic introduces the measured decline of protoplasm in the index of

Biological Abstracts: "If protoplasm is really use- less, or detrimental, then we should be able to show that the word is being used increasingly less often by those engaged in thinking and research." The data might equally indicate that those en- gaged in the details of particulate research are finding less opportunity to express their thinking at the integrative level to which protoplasm is ap- propriate.

Parenthetically, one should take exception to the degree of emphasis supplied by the graph. My 6-year-old daughter was smitten with sympathy for Gillespie's creature. I explained that this was a symbol for a word on its deathbed (see how the line goes down) and a word that I would hate to lose; hence I am writing this letter. After a quick extrapolation (see where it would be this year) she urged me to hurry, and to write several letters if that would raise it from the dead. I had to point out that even if the points were real, the line is imaginary and ill-fitted to the points. And words do not die as straight-line functions, so 1955 was not crucial. She is only partly reassured, being still impressed by print.

Admittedly, it is difficult to keep the teaching of elementary biology up to date in its viewpoint. But it is at this very level that we need the com- plete cycle of analysis and resynthesis, and this cannot be done by avoiding integrative concepts. If research workers do not help teach elementary biology, and if they bury their heads in the sands of particulate experiments to the point of ignoring protoplasm, they will do a disservice to biology.

ROLAND WALKER Department of Biology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York

Validity of Test Items That Involve Finding a Pattern in Data: a Rejoinder

A letter by Gerald C. Helmstadter has been pub- lished [Sci. Monthly 81, 209 (1955)] in reply to my article, "Validity of test items that involve finding a pattern in data" [Sci. Monthly 80, 50 (1955)]. Since the letter is based on a profound misinter- pretation of my article, much of what it contains is irrelevant. I should like to discuss some of the criticisms offered.

Helmstadter arbitrarily selects one of the four

July 1956 35

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