This will be an interesting follow-up to my last post. Despite my whining and groaning about grad school and all of that, I do actually care somewhat about the subject matter I am studying. Out of all of the genres of academia I could have chosen, I picked biology -- not only as something I feel deeply about, but also because I could (can? I'm not sure anymore) picture it as the dominant force in my working life.
Quick Preface: I did not take any real classes last semester. At the time, it was probably a good decision. I'm not sure I would've benefited from anything in the course listings last fall. However, this semester I decided I need even just a tiny bit of structure and signed up for a once-a-week seminar in issues facing forest ecology. We're coming up on our third week of real class discussions, and I have been struck by some of the things we keep circling back on. These are issues facing all scientists... and laymen. My class is rather small, 2-3 each of seniors, graduate students, and PhD students (as well as our professor), and whenever we talk about land management and the ethics involved, it is quite apparent that none of us really knows how to handle things. Specifically.
The title of this blog is something my professor said. I mostly agree with him. When a scientist lays out the facts colored by his/her opinion, how is the layman supposed to interpret? The primary purpose of science should be to find the facts such as they are and report them. If opinion and personal ethics get involved, results tend to be clouded. Objectivity is key. As Richard Feynman said, "...the idea is to try and give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgement in one particular direction or another."
In this vein, I am particularly interested in what the non-scientist thinks of nature and how we as humans should manage it. Science can point us only so far. What we are actually willing to commit to in terms of politics and management is up to society and society's values.
Thoughts or ideas? I would really like to know what laymen and other scientists think. I've gotten a few opinions so far and I think I know a few issues that should be addressed (namely the differences between conservation and preservation, why there's been a focus on charismatic megafauna, why things like wildfires in CA happen...). I'll do individual posts for each subject I can think of to discuss and clarify.
I don't think we should ever try to make the status quo indefinite (i.e., reintroducing wolves all over the place decades after they died off). It's pointless, consumes a ton of time and resources, and if the idea is to preserve nature well...the natural state of nature is constant flux. Things have to run, speaking in terms of adaptation, just to keep up. I won't pretend to understand the depth and complexity of the issue of how we should interact with nature, but I DO feel comfortable saying we should be more okay with getting our hands out of its business. Specifically, if you've killed the wolves then just try not to kill anything else! If you've drained the wetlands, try not to drain anymore! Don't go building fake swamps and raising wolves in captivity and then reintroducing them into the wild.
ReplyDeleteCharismatic megafauna...are a good motivator for environmental reform in general, but I don't know to what degree they actually inspire people to care about things that aren't pandas. We don't need pandas. Pandas can die. JUST LET THEM.
That aside....yeah.
I think what Alex had to say over on Facebook in relation to human's interaction with nature was a truth, and highly interesting. We are dependent on the world around us and everything we do will affect things. I also see the earth as a super organism that can and will heal itself. I don't think that global climate change, for example, is solely on human's shoulders, but it has been aggravated by what humans have done. I think the planet can fix itself. Should that happen, it would take a really long period of time because of the size of the earth and the nature of everything that will shift.
ReplyDeleteOn how scientists should present their facts they should state them as what they are, and especially that they are not definitive. Yes, garbage and what not, in relation to climate change as I referenced earlier, if bad for the environment, but with the way of the world things will potentially get worse before they get better. Yes, there is the immediate future that we can do but so much about, but then there's the distant future that is not in control of human hands, well, not the hands of people living today. People forget that the earth rotated and survived for millennium before humanity and we're just a speck in time for the planet, for the galaxy, or universe, I've never been good with remembering which was larger.
I think I've forgotten what question I was attempting to answer...I'm sure I said something relevant up there, somewhere.