"Q: Is it good for science that there is a global language dominating scientific communication?"

"A: It depends on how you look at it. On the one hand, communication among scientists from different nationalities -- at conferences, at global universities -- is greatly facilitated by there being one agreed-upon language of communication. (There's no intrinsic linguistic reason why such a language has to be English; it happens to have turned out that way historically.) Collaboration has increasingly become a crucial feature of scientific development, and so the advent of a global language is positive. On the other hand, for those who have to learn English as a second (or third, or fifth) language � an essential requirement of participating in today's science � the burden can be very high. A student who displays no aptitude in learning this particular language, no matter how gifted in a scientific sense, is almost certainly locked out of educational opportunities, the relevant scientific literature and a career. There are other downsides, too, and how you tally up the total depends a good deal on your own linguistic background."