I can’t say that I enjoyed reading this article very much; all this jargon is beginning to irk me. And then I find my mind wandering off somewhere with more sunlight and trees. Modulation? What?
My understanding is this: evolutionary biology tends to invite broad speculation on the part of non-specialists who think they’re qualified to make assertions based on their high school biology classes. (Which is why I usually only discuss this stuff when I’m drunk–no one’s going to be bothered by my baseless, uninformed opinions.) Why? Because it’s easier and more fun to fit scientific theories into one’s pre-existing ideas than basing these assertions on, say, observable data. The latter tends to take more work, an open mind, and all sorts of nonsense like that. Since evolutionary biology encompasses many philosophically sensitive topics (mostly just our creation and the reasons why we are the way we are), and since billions of years of its history are unobservable due to our irritating lack of time-travelling technologies, all sorts of people (including myself) like to butt in and dole out our two cents. In fact, the longer I take this course, the more evident my indecent lack of knowledge becomes.
But this isn’t as blame-worthy as I’ve ended up making it sound. World views are powerful forces, and not likely to change quickly, excepting some extreme happenstance. So, as we saw with that depression article, scientists of every flavor are not immune to such biases. Essentially, it’s good to remember that deeming a trait as better/worse, adaptive/maladaptive is not very useful and only marginally scientific. I like what someone wrote earlier about complexity: how do we define that, anyway? Because we tend to think that we are the most complex organism out there, just because we have invented things like the can opener and disco. Isn’t simplicity usually more stable, anyway?
4 replies on “Brief response to Lynch”
The thing with the jargon is that it’s much easier, shorter and more precise to use specialised terminology (I’m find some humanities terminology rather irksome when first reading it too, so it goes both ways) — I do science blogging in my other [online] life, and it’s much harder to write for a more general audience than to write something full of technical terminology aimed at biologists. It’s very hard to pick the exact right ‘simple’ words to convey information accurately, AND in an interesting way. Popular technical writing must be one of the hardest genres out there, IMO…
And you’re totally right about people often considering evolution so simple that anyone is automatically an expert on it. (my father asked: “People STILL study evolution? Isn’t it done already?” *facepalm*) A similar problem exists with linguistics — many people assume that because they already speak a language or two, they automatically must know how language works, and consider themselves experts on it. The amount of ridiculously misinformed (yet STRONG) opinions about language are on par with those about evolution. It doesn’t help that the more you learn, the less you feel like an expert, and the more confused you get, so often proper experts don’t speak with nearly as much certainty as pseudoexperts, so the latter are louder and can reach a wider audience. Same with with the New Age medicine gunk, by the way.
If you have time and want a prime example of New Agey people gone too far after someone gave them a camera and funding, watch this film: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-935657163159051069&ei=1O1hS7riGYP-qAOpmKT5Aw&q=what+the+bleep+do+we+know&view=3&dur=3#
The soundtrack alone gives it away. And the amazing graphical effects.
I suggest that:
The sum of all knowledge is greater than any one person can hold in their mind. So we have specialists. If every specialist expected everyone else to understand them, then we’d have people-heads exploding left, right, and center.
Having people who can simplify what they’re saying for the benefit of others is a great benefit to everyone, as the specialist can keep doing their work and the rest of us can understand what’s going on enough to recognize the benefit. (Or cut the funding 🙂
I could say the above more specifically if I used mathematical notation, but then it wouldn’t make sense to the rest of us.
Thank you Scott.
Lisi, I have seen that film. It was amazing.