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November 22nd, 2025 (Permalink)

Untangle the Nots¹

Here's a quote from a book on quotations by Paul F. Boller, Jr.:

…Admiral Lewis Strauss…chose…to quote Dr. William Neuman…cautiously warning against continued [nuclear] testing: "Our ignorance in this field is so great that we cannot say with any certainty that we have not already put so much strontium-90 into the stratosphere that harmful fall-out is not inevitable."²

Since nuclear testing is back in the news³, this quotation is accidentally topical, but what does it mean? Boller calls it a "triple-negatively worded statement", but I'm not sure how he arrived at the number three, since I count four negations, highlighted above: "-not" on the end of "cannot", "not", "not" again, and "in-" on the front of "inevitable". Given its complex structure and many negations, Neuman's statement is difficult to understand. Boller goes on to say that Neuman was "suggesting danger from nuclear tests", but is that right?

If you'd like to have a go at untangling Neuman's statement, stop here and do so. Click on the button below to see my analysis.

Let's start out by analyzing the overall structure of Neuman's statement. It's hard to understand partly because it has an internal sentence wrapped within two modifiers. Let's call this internal sentence "S1":

S1: We have not already put so much strontium-90 (Sr-90⁴) into the stratosphere that harmful fall-out is not inevitable.

So, the entire statement can be abbreviated:

Our ignorance in this field is so great that we cannot say with any certainty that S1.

The two sentence modifiers are the phrases "our ignorance in this field is so great that" and "we cannot say with any certainty that". The second of these modifiers directly modifies S1:

S2: We cannot say with any certainty that S1.

S2 tells us that we can't be sure S1 is true. The other modifier modifies S2:

S3: Our ignorance in this field is so great that S2.

S3 is actually Neuman's full statement, and it explains why S2 is true, that is, it explains why we can't say S1 with any certainty. The reason we can't be sure about S1 is that we're too ignorant about the effects of nuclear testing. Neuman would have been more understandable if he'd made this proviso into a separate claim and eliminated the first negation. For instance:

It's hard to be sure that we have not already put so much Sr-90 into the stratosphere that harmful fall-out is not inevitable. This is because our ignorance in this field is so great.

So, let's unwrap S3 by removing the outer modifier and turn to S2. The remaining inner modifier simply says that it's hard to be sure about S1, but what is hard to be sure about? We've eliminated one negation by paraphrasing it away but three remain. Can we get rid of any more?

The most obvious simplification that can be made to S1 is to remove the double negation at its end―"not inevitable". To say that something is "not inevitable" is to say that it is "evitable", which is a real if uncommon English word meaning "avoidable"⁵. Therefore, we can simplify S1 to:

S1': We have not already put so much Sr-90 into the stratosphere that harmful fall-out is evitable.

However, it is likely, given Boller's report of what Neuman meant, that he should have written:

We have already put so much strontium-90 into the stratosphere that harmful fall-out is inevitable.

Even though both sentences have only a single negation, they do not mean the same thing. Compare the following two sentences:

The turkey has not already been so long in the oven that burning is avoidable.
The turkey has already been so long in the oven that burning is unavoidable.

Sentence 1 is denying that the turkey has been so long in the oven that burning is avoidable, which implies that if it were left longer in the oven burning would be avoidable. However, the longer the turkey is in the oven the more likely it is to burn⁶. So, sentence 1 implies something false. Sentence 2, in contrast, says something sensible, namely, that the turkey has been in the oven too long and burning can no longer be avoided.

Similarly, Neuman was apparently questioning whether nuclear testing had already put so much Sr-90 into the atmosphere that fallout couldn't be avoided. Therefore, he should have said something similar to the following:

We know so little that it's hard to be certain, but we may have already put so much Sr-90 into the atmosphere that fallout is unavoidable.

This has only one negation and it's perfectly understandable if a little wordy.

It appears that Neuman got so tangled up in his own modifiers and negations that he said something he didn't mean. This is why you should avoid using too many negations as you will not only confuse your readers, but you may also confuse yourself.

Notes:

↑ Previous entries in this series:
- Untie the Nots, 1/22/2005
- Untie the Nots, Part 2, 2/1/2005
- Untie the Nots, Part 3, 2/1/2010
- Untie the Nots, Part 4, 3/2/2010
- Untie the Nots, Part 5, 2/11/2013
- Untie the Nots, Part 6, 10/1/2013
- Can You Untie the Nots?, 3/24/2016
- Untying the Nots, 11/14/2022
↑ Paul F. Boller, Jr., Quotemanship: The Use and Abuse of Quotations for Polemical and Other Purposes (1967), p. 44.
↑ Hollie Silverman, "Donald Trump Orders Nuclear Weapons Testing: What To Know", Newsweek, 10/31/2025.
↑ "Radionuclide Basics: Strontium-90", Environmental Protection Agency, 2/6/2025.
↑ "Evitable", Cambridge Dictionary, accessed: 11/21/2025.
↑ At least if the oven is on at a temperature appropriate for cooking turkeys.

November 13th, 2025 (Revised: 11/15/2025) (Permalink)

How to Lie With Notes 2¹: Latin Abbreviations

Recent codifiers of scholarly usage tend to prefer repeating the short title² to any use of the Latin abbreviations, and indeed there are indications that the whole apparatus is being simplified as well as Anglicized. But since thousands of books use the older systems dating back as far as the seventeenth century, it behooves the researcher to learn the classic symbols and usages.³

While not as common as they once were, abbreviations of Latin words and phrases still occur in the notes to some scholarly works. Moreover, such notes are ubiquitous in works from previous centuries. In order to detect misleading notes, you have to first understand what the notes mean.

Why Latin? For the same reason that people still wear those silly black robes and square hats during a graduation ceremony: tradition. No one now wears a gown and mortarboard outside of graduation, but in the middle ages it was standard scholarly attire⁴. To don this garb at graduation is to announce that you are now a scholar who is a part of a tradition stretching back many centuries to a time when people dressed funny⁵.

Latin used to be the language of scholarship, so that scholars who spoke different native languages could communicate in a common scholarly tongue. Today, that language is no longer Latin, but English, which is one reason why Latin in notes is diminishing if not disappearing entirely.

Why are the Latin words and phrases used in notes abbreviated? It's not to make them more mysterious, though it may have that effect, but to make them more compact so as to take up less space at the foot of the page―endnotes can afford to be more expansive. For the same reason, footnotes are often printed in a smaller font than the text, which can make them difficult to read. In notes, space is precious.

Here are the most common abbreviations, not in alphabetical order but roughly in frequency of occurrence and importance to understand:

Ibid.: This is the most common Latin abbreviation you are likely to come across in notes to works with any scholarly pretension. "Ibid." is short for "ibidem", an adverb that means "in the same place" or "at the same time"⁶. Its literal meaning helps a little to understand but doesn't fully explain how it's used in notes. When "ibid." occurs in a note, it refers back to the previous note, so that an entire citation doesn't need to be repeated⁷. If the reference is to the same page or pages as the previous note, then "ibid." alone can do the job. For instance, footnote 9 of chapter 3 in The Modern Researcher is simply "Ibid."⁸ The previous footnote on the same page reads:
⁸ Quoted in W. K. Hancock, Country and Calling, London, 1954, 95.⁹

This says that the quote in the text on the same page that is followed by a superscript "8" is from page 95 of the book Country and Calling by W. K. Hancock, which was published in London in 1954. So, the subsequent quote, followed by a superscript "9", is from the same page of the same book.
The purpose of "ibid." is to save the scholar and the reader from repeating the same citation as given in the previous note, but what do you do when you want to cite a work you've already cited but not in the immediately preceding note? That's where our next abbreviation comes in:
Op. cit.: "Op. cit." is an abbreviation of "opere citato", which means "in the work cited"¹⁰. This does the same job as "ibid." except that it jumps over the previous note. If only one work has been so far cited, or only one by the author mentioned in the noted text, then "op. cit." is used followed by the relevant page number(s). For instance, in Charles Stevenson's Ethics and Language, we find the note: "23. Op. cit., p. 268."¹¹ The note refers back to the following note from a few pages earlier:
16. Methods of Ethics (Macmillan, 1874).…¹²

We can tell that this is the relevant work because the author, Henry Sidgwick, is mentioned in the text in both places. If multiple authors have already been noted, then "op. cit." would need to be preceded by the author's last name in order to indicate which work is cited.
Loc. cit.: "Loc. cit." is short for "loco citato", which does not mean "crazy citation" but "in the location cited"¹³. "Loc. cit." is just "op. cit." when the note refers back not only to the work cited, but to the same page(s), that is, the same "location". For instance, Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has the following footnote:
6 Albert Einstein, "Autobiographical Note," in Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, ed. P. A. Schilpp (Evanston, Ill., 1949), p. 45.¹⁴

This tells us that the quote of Einstein on the same page comes from page 45 of Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, edited by P. A. Schilpp, and published in Evanston, Illinois in 1949. Several pages later, we see the note:
14 Einstein, loc. cit.¹⁵

This indicates that the claim followed by a superscript "14" on the same page comes from the same book and page as the previously cited quote from Einstein.
Robert J. Gula wrote forty-five years ago about "loc. cit." that: "This abbreviation used to be used in footnotes but has recently been replaced by ibid., or by the author's last name followed by the first words of the title [that is, the "short title"]."¹⁶ As mentioned above, "op. cit." is sometimes used this way, so "loc. cit." can be dispensed with, but you still may come across it, especially in older works such as Kuhn's.
pass.: "Pass." abbreviates "passim", which is often spelled out in full, and means "here and there".¹⁷ It refers to a reference that occurs "here and there" or scattered throughout the work cited, and is used when there are too many pages to cite individually. For instance, another note of Stevenson's reads in part:
30. … An instructive study of metaphor has been made by I. A. Richards,… Interpretation in Teaching (Harcourt, Brace, 1938), passim. … ¹⁸

This means that the "instructive study of metaphor" is found here and there throughout the book cited.
cf.: This abbreviates the Latin word "confer", which means "compare"¹⁹, and it's occasionally found in notes preceding a citation to a work that the writer suggests be compared with the claim noted. Stevenson makes frequent use of it in footnotes²⁰.
f. & ff.: A single "f." abbreviates the Latin word "folio" for a page or leaf in a book²¹. Instead of writing, say, "pp. 123-124", "pp. 123f." means the same thing, that is, "page 123 and the following page". The double "f" in "ff." is like the double "p" in "pp.", that is, it means "pages following", so that "pp. 32ff." means "page 32 and the pages following". The double "f" indicates at least two pages following, but it could be more.
idem: "Idem", sometimes abbreviated "id.", means "the same"²² and is used to avoid repeating a name, title, or reference from the preceding note. As a result, "idem" can be used in the same way as "ibidem", above, and Stevenson seems to use it exclusively instead of "ibid."²³.

Those are the most common Latin abbreviations used in notes that don't also occur in the text itself, or in other contexts. In the next installment, we'll anatomize the structure of a citation.

Notes:

↑ Part one is here: How to Lie With Notes: Introduction, 10/23/2025.
↑ By the "short title", Barzun & Graff mean a shortened version of the full title of a scholarly work. For instance, they refer to Charles A. Beard's An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution by the short title "Economic Interpretation", see: Jacques Barzun & Henry F. Graff, The Modern Researcher (1977), pp. 267 & 286-287.
↑ Ibid., p. 286.
↑ For the history of the academic cap and gown, see: Jonathan Rapoport, "Pomp and Circumstance", Slate, 6/11/2010.
↑ This is not to say that people don't dress funny nowadays.
↑ Eugene Ehrlich, Amo, Amas, Amat and More: How to Use Latin to Your Own Advantage and to the Astonishment of Others (1985).
↑ Barzun & Graff, loc. cit.
↑ Ibid., p. 42.
↑ Ibid.
↑ Ehrlich, op. cit.
↑ 1965, p. 223.
↑ Ibid., p. 219.
↑ Ehrlich, op. cit.
↑ 3rd edition, 1996, p. 83.
↑ Ibid., p. 89.
↑ Robert J. Gula, Precision: A Reference Handbook for Writers (1980), p. 250.
↑ Jon R. Stone, Latin for the Illiterati (1996).
↑ Op. cit., p. 76.
↑ Stone, op. cit., p. 21.
↑ Op. cit., passim.
↑ Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, edited by Ivor H. Evans (Centenary edition, 1981).
↑ Ehrlich, op. cit.
↑ Op. cit., passim.

November 1st, 2025 (Permalink)

The End of Nature

Anna Krylov, "Why I no longer engage with Nature publishing group", Heterodox STEM, 10/24/2025

…Scientific publishers play a key role in the production of knowledge…. The role of the publisher is to be an epistemic funnel: it accepts claims to truth at one end, but permits only those that withstand organized scrutiny to emerge from the other, a function traditionally performed by a rigorous peer-review and editorial process. This process should be guided by scientific rigor and a commitment to finding objective truth.
Unfortunately, the Nature group has abandoned its mission in favor of advancing a social justice agenda. The group has institutionalized censorship, implemented policies that have sacrificed merit in favor of identity-based criteria, and injected social engineering into its author guidelines and publishing process. The result is that papers published in Nature journals can no longer be regarded as rigorous science. Three representative examples illustrate this decline:

Institutionalized social engineering
The Springer Nature Diversity Commitment…openly pledges to "take action to improve diversity and inclusion in the conferences we organise, and in our commissioned content, the peer review population and editorial boards." Editors are "asked to intentionally and proactively reach out to women researchers" and authors are instructed to suggest reviewers "with diversity in mind." In other words, editorial choices and peer review are to be guided not solely by competence but by demographic attributes. …
Ideological subversion of literature citations
Nature Reviews Psychology…now encourages authors to practice "citation justice"―that is, to social-engineer their manuscript's bibliography to promote members of favored identity groups, even if their works lack the requisite merit or relevance. "Citation justice" is particularly harmful because it undermines the rigor and reliability of published research. When references are chosen not for their scientific relevance or quality but to promote the work of preferred identity groups, the integrity of science itself is compromised….
Institutionalized censorship
Nature Human Behavior has published a censorship manifesto…now widely criticized…in which they openly declare their intent to censor legitimate research findings that they deem potentially "harmful" to certain groups. Not only is it arrogant for editors to presume they have the expertise to make such judgments, the practice is antithetical to the production of knowledge.

Any of these policies, taken alone, would undermine the epistemic standards of scientific publishing as a pillar of the truth-seeking enterprise. Together they represent a profound corruption of purpose. The purpose of science is the pursuit of truth, not the advancement of diversity, equity, and inclusion. These examples disturbingly reveal that scientific publishing at Nature has become ideologically corrupt.

Disclaimer: I don't necessarily agree with everything in this article, but I think it's worth reading in its entirety. In editing the excerpt, I sometimes changed the paragraphing.

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