My kids have a puzzle of “jungle creatures”.
I hate it1. I do not hate it because there is no jungle in the world in which these animals all live together2. Continue reading “That’s no monkey…”
Category: Curiosities of Nature
Is scientific writing designed to suck?
I disagree with this at Scientific American:
The conventions of scientific writing have two goals: to convey authority, and to demonstrate the author’s objectivity. Conventions that convey authority include a standardized article structure (Introduction, Methods, Results, Conclusion); booster words (Scientific articles contain more booster words [clearly, obviously] than other research articles, but less hedge words [may, seem, possibly].); and invocations of doom (To justify experiments articles often begin with overblown sentences like “As we all know, all species are dying.”).
Conventions that convey objectivity include the erasure of scientists as actors in their own experiments via past passive voice (e.g. “the chemicals were heated” versus “I heated the chemicals”) and the use of nominalizations or zombie nouns, which make actions themselves less visible by presenting their results as states of being (Compare “The rate was a reflection of population density increases,” to “The rate reflects an increased population density.”). – “Scientists as Writers”, Laura Jane Martin
Let’s be clear that we’re talking about research papers here, and not popularization of science. The goals of scientific convention are to present your data and make arguments as clearly and efficiently as possible.
When I read a scientific paper I’m not asking myself, ‘are these authors objective?’ Frankly, I don’t care whether they’re objective or not. Objectivity is overrated. I want to 1) understand what the authors did, 2) judge whether their methodology is sound, and 3) decide whether I agree with their arguments about the data.
Actually, as Laura Jane Martin points out, “today’s conventions emerged in a seventeenth century attempt to make scientific writing clearer.” So in fact I don’t disagree with her. Continue reading “Is scientific writing designed to suck?”
“The Failure of the Science Fiction Novel as Social Criticism”
I’ve been digging into my new Library of America copy of The Space Merchants. The book is an outstanding example of science fiction as social criticism. And so it’s interesting to read C.M. Kornbluth’s thoughts on the failure of the science fiction novel as social criticism:
I suggest from this that there is very little fundamental material in the “Skylark” universe which is congruent with adulthood. I suggest that there is much fundamental material in that universe congruent with the attitudes and emotions of a boy seven or nine years old tearing off down an alley on his bike in search of adventure. The politics of this boy are vague, half-understood, overheard adult dogmatisms. His sex-life is a bashful, inhibited yearning for unspecific contact. His cultural level is low; he has not had time to learn to like anything seriously musical. Around the corner there lurks the impossibly malignant black-haired bully who may be all of twelve, and his smart little toady. But Dicky Seaton has a loyal pal, Marty Crane, and together they will whip the bully and toady in a fair, stand-up fight.
What are these wild adventures of Seaton and Crane, then? These mighty conquests, these vast explorations, these titanic battles? They are boyish daydreams, the power of fantasies which compensate for the inevitable frustrations of childhood in an adult world. They are the weakness of the Smith stories as rational pictures of the universe and society, and they are the strength of the stories as engrossing tales of Never-Never Land. We have all been children.
Continue reading ““The Failure of the Science Fiction Novel as Social Criticism””
Experimental Evolution: Longest PhD Project EVER?!
I first heard about experimental evolution while reading “The Greatest Show on Earth” by Richard Dawkins. In my naïve view, how could anyone really perform experiments on evolution? Doesn’t it take millions of years? The chapter referenced the E. Coli Long-Term Experimental Evolution Project. I was blown away by the fact that this lab was taking advantage of the short reproduction and life cycle of E. Coli to study evolution in the lab.
I was reminded of this great experiment the other day by an article about another lab studying experimental evolution using microalgae instead of E. Coli. Sinead Collins leads a group in the UK that is studying how microalgae respond to changes associated with ocean acidification or increased levels of carbon dioxide. They have found that while these algae use carbon to complete photosynthesis, they are sensitive to overly high levels of carbon. In an acidic environment, the algae start to get “syndromes” and fail to use up the increased carbon available to them. This goes against the beliefs of many that say that the aquatic life will simply use up the increased carbon in an acidified ocean.
These two groups have each found an organism and a method that will allow them to study evolution experimentally in the lab.
Pursue ignorance, learn science
Ignorance is not just a blank space on a person’s mental map. It has contours and coherence, and for all I know rules of operation as well. – Thomas Pynchon, Slow Learner
Dr. Stewart Firestein, a Columbia University neurobiologist is a scientist after my own heart. A former actor and theater manager, he went to graduate school in his mid-thirties, and despite the late start, has pursued a successful career understanding olfaction. He teaches a class on ignorance in science, and he’s written a book based on the ideas in the class, Ignorance: How It drives Science.
The basic message of the book is that facts are boring, while ignorance is (or can be) interesting, and we need to teach and practice science with this in mind. In this brief, genial book, Firestein gives advice on how to have an interesting conversation with a scientist – ask any of the following questions:
The Finch and Pea 