Tag Archives: Science

Science tells a human story but scientists don’t care

I read something interesting from the Archdruid Report. It suggests that science provides a narrative to contextualize human lives. That’s interesting, but not the intention or concern of scientists.

…When the late Carl Sagan spun his compelling “We are star-stuff” myth for the viewers of Cosmos, for example, he was engaging in reflection rather than abstraction. His goal was not to communicate an abstract rule but to weave a narrative of meaning that provided a context within which human life can be lived.

He makes an interesting point about science. I see it as the fringe of knowledge, pressing outward. There is an aspect to which the Archdruid points that is the opposite. He suggests that science is a competing reflective narrative in our culture.  I don’t disagree, but I can vouch for this: scientists don’t see their work in this context. Sagan was building a narrative to directly compete with The Religious Narrative.  I think religions see see only this aspect of science, and it’s an aspect of science to which the scientists themselves are oblivious and uncaring.  That disconnect is part of the problem with communicating science to non-scientists. It’s one reason Carl Sagan was so smart.

Anti-fragility

Evolution, capitalism and science are anti-fragile. Nassim Taleb introduced the idea to my consciousness.

Top-down optimized systems are always fragile. These three phenomena are not fragile. In fact, they gain from being shocked.

Evolution, capitalism and science also share this common algorithm: systematic, brutally honest trials of proposed solutions, followed by ruthless rejection of failures and amplification of successes. The human psyche may not be well-adapted to appreciate such systems. We seldom like honesty or rejection.

 

Robotics is better for America than football

According to this story which was covered by reddit not too long ago:

Current members of the first Portland area high school robotics club — chartered as “Team 1432” by FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) — ponder the club’s future as they sit with their only asset — last year’s robot — in the dank basement of an aging fraternal organization’s clubhouse

There is a high school in Oregon that is disbanding its robotics team on a technicality and pocketing the money that the team raised for its competition. I have nothing against football, but it strikes me as unfair that this would never happen to a football team.

This got me thinking that Football,a s an industry, is probably smaller than Robotics. And, indeed, I was pretty close. Both American Football and Robotics are about $6 billion businesses annually. In the next few years, toys and domestic service robots like the Roomba will likely reach about $6 billion., according to The Robot Report.

There is no reason to think that a person has a better chance of getting a job in football than in robotics. Now, to some people, football is entertaining. But shouldn’t school be a place where students are encouraged to do more than entertain themselves?

-Peter

Bioprospecting

I’ve been thinking about There Will Be Blood (based on Upton Sinclair’s Oil!) and its relationship to present day. In the movie, a ruthless oil prospector risks life and limb looking for mineral wealth – and in particular, oil. The complete lack of technology is staggering. For the first half of the move (set in ~1900) the main character is literally digging for oil with a shovel. And after a great deal of  labor and conniving, he becomes fantastically wealthy. It reminds me of Charles Steen, about whom I read in Uranium by Tom Zoellner.  Another ruthless bastard, he got rich in the Uranium mining boom in the 1950s.

Firstly, let me say that out of a million bastards with shovels, only a tiny percentage had the cunning and physical prowess to make it big. And only one of those actually stumbles on to a big enough claim to be rich. One in a million. In 100 years, there are maybe a dozen examples of rich men who started out with determination and a shovel.

Having said that, what’s out there for future prospectors? Not oil or uranium or any mineral. In places where such things are abundant and land is cheap, a major corporate interest will take it over from any tiny private party who might get in the way. Think I’m joking? “The oil giant Shell has agreed to pay $15.5m (£9.6m) in settlement of a legal action in which it was accused of having ­collaborated in the execution of the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other leaders of the Ogoni tribe.”

Maybe the future is in bioprospecting. Imagine exploring the antarctic seeking the rare octopus whose venom will lead to a better understanding of protein folding at cold temperatures – and from there to cold-adapted vaccines, storable antibodies, and cures for major diseases, etc. Maybe it’s happening now.

Coffee makes us happy

 

As if we didn’t already know, coffee makes us happy. Actually, any warm drink would do, it seems. And it’s not so much happy as it is cooperative and trustful. It’s Science!

Neuroscience Marketing reminded me of this phenomenon. I saw it first in a documentary about making decisions. It seems that the NYT noticed it a few years ago when it was published in Science.

What’s the gist? Well, it seems that if you handle a cup of hot coffee you are more apt to trust and accept people. They tested this by giving people either a hot or cold beverage for a minute. Then they asked people if they would hire a new acquaintance or not. Subjects were statistically more likely to hire the candidate if they had a hot beverage relative to a cold beverage.

Surprising? Maybe. Bear it in mind for interviews, I suppose.

Cheers,
Peter