Posts by Lucy Stewart
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with so much of the seafloor unexplored, it’s not unreasonable to hope that some deep-water species might still exist…
Having just got back from two weeks in a darkened room exploring the seafloor, I can assure you that it's really astounding how difficult it is to find things down there. Even things you have a fairly good idea should be there. There's a lot we have yet to learn.
I'd still be pretty astonished if trilobites were found, though. They've just been out of the fossil record for so damn long. Moreover, we have a fairly good idea of what sorts of organisms inhabit the deep sea - if not the precise species. Even coelecanths are, after all, bony fish, and we know there's plenty of bony fish in the sea. As it were. Trilobites are so distant from anything now extant - we'd surely have found something related in the fossil record, even if not the trilobites themselves.
Still, there's plenty we're yet to find. I guess you never know.
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Hard News: Science: it's complicated, in reply to nzlemming,
Rational discussion is not a huge factor in the GMO debate.
There is a lot of incredibly irrational opposition to GMOs which boils down to "but it's not natural", to which my answer is generally "how do you feel about antibiotics and modern dentistry?". (Also, species swapping DNA = 100% completely natural.)
But the way GMOs are currently released, the legislation around them, and the domination of the field by companies like Monsanto IS problematic, and there does need to be a more open and thorough testing regime. It's possible to be fully supportive of the use of GM in the human food chain and think that the current situation falls below best practice. I certainly do, in much the same way that I think current drug development often falls below best practice. (In fact, if I had to pick one, I'd say that's more of a problem, but then you get into the whole if-you-disagree-with-pharmaceutical-companies-you-must-support-alternative-medicine thing, and, arrrrgh.)
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Hard News: Science: it's complicated, in reply to Sophie Fern,
I gave a great justification of my PhD research, (PhD is in English, but I’m a biologist by training), at a departmental seminar and my first comment, from the HoD was that no one had ever justified their research in the department before!
Now, convincing businesspeople to fund research in the humanities, that's a trick. (Ones who aren't Bob Jones, anyhow.)
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Hard News: Science: it's complicated, in reply to Sacha,
Government and business decision-makers seem like relevant audiences to consider as well as the general public.
Oh, believe me, you don't get through a PhD without learning how to address those audiences. They should run seminars: How Your Research Can Be Related To Climate Change, Curing Cancer, Quantum Computers, Or Better Yet, All Of The Above.
Personally I find this approach unhelpful to the pursuit of science in general - you can't write a grant application to look for something you don't know is there yet - but it's how it is.
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Southerly: Things to be Grateful For: A…, in reply to Megan Wegan,
I can corroborate that in Highbury, there was snow for, oh, less than 5 minutes, on and off. It was kind of pathetic, but not something you see in Wellington every day.
I seem to remember a visible amount of snow sometime in the early '90s, maybe 92/93. Nothing that stuck around for very long the next day, but there. Did this happen, or did I just get overly excited about a heavy frost?
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Hard News: Science: it's complicated, in reply to andin,
Are they actually claiming some kind of legitimacy for creation stories? If they can, can everyone else?
And we’re screwed……I don't think so. Creation myths have a legitimate cultural aspect, and tell you a lot about how people perceive the world around them. Taking that into account when dealing with the ethics of scientific sampling and practice is quite different from the intrusion of myths into the framework of science.
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Hard News: Science: it's complicated, in reply to Cushla McKinney,
I think we are moving closer to the point where ‘good science’ incorporates the ability to communicate scientific ideas to a lay audience.
Well...yes and no. Good science is good science. That it can be and is communicated to the lay public is important, but that's a different thing and a different skill. Not everyone who does good science is going to be a great communicator with the lay public - I know good scientists who aren't great communicators with people outside their specialist field. That doesn't devalue the work they do.
Ethics and communication could definitely stand to be emphasised more in science education (the number of students who show up with the idea that they don't like writing, so they'd like to do science is kind of terrifying). I think, though, that telling people that they can't do good science unless they can also be good at science communication is ultimately counterproductive. It's okay to need a bit of translation. What's not okay is not realising you need help communicating, or not trying to do it better.
And I kind of have to agree with Ben about the "rock star" thing; there are plenty of examples of scientists who are very, very good at engaging with the public and media, but whose actually scientific achievements are...not as great as their media presence, especially when you take into account the collaborative nature of modern science. We need those people too, but let's not pretend that every scientist is going to be Carl Sagan, or, moreover, that we *need* every scientist to be Carl Sagan.
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Nothing like a bit of snow to make everything beautiful. As long as it goes away again...
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Southerly: One Hundred and Thirty-one…, in reply to Islander,
That paticular arguement means nothing to me – but, obviously, may mean something to motorists in other areas-
I'd think that argument was implicitly in the context of urban commuting. I mean, how often do you have arguments about how people who live on the West Coast should be doing more cycle commuting?
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to Islander,
Lilith? The OT Lilith? Where’s she in all this?
I’ve mostly absorbed Bible apologetics of the Independent Baptist variety. They don’t hold with all that apocryphal stuff. It’s practically pagan.
But then apparently that’s not the case – Jesus really said camel through the eye of a needle, updating an older Talmudic aphorism (which crammed an elephant in there).
I seem to recall hearing – and am fully prepared to be corrected on this – that pretty much all the neat aphorisms attributed to Jesus in the Bible are just updated versions of previously-existing pieces of wisdom. Kind of like how Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde between them apparently had the nineteenth century’s entire allotment of witty remarks, only, er, more religious.