h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Fair enough....it's not their fault.

BUT

Do you think that the public 'want' to understand? Who is going to teach them? Their beloved newspapers?!

At the end of the day, science is science. We wouldn't have to do Degrees in it if just any old bod on the street could pick it up off TV. You know aswell as I do that genetics is incredibly complicated when you actually get down to the gritty details. Some members of the public can't even grasp the basics let alone gain any form of understanding of the subject.

That said, having, likewise, watched/heard many discussions I can conclude that it is the daytime TV generation (not students though!) that seem to be the worst.

Bring on the doom of Richard and Judy!
Put a stop to the propaganda being sold to the housewife/OAP public!

ho ho ho

With respect to students, the younger generation (of which I am admittedly a part) appears to be more prepared to accept things that their parents wouldn't have. We, well I, tend to sit around and yell abuse at the media facists who get it all wrong.

I would love the realms of science to be open to everyone, but I just can't see that being possible when people do not have the motivation and/or intelligence to understand.

"Did you know that, in many places, they wonder why
evolutionary biology should be taught in school?"

No. I thought it was a limited area of the US.
When I think about it some more however. It must also
apply to many belief systems.

It is an example of how one "world view" differs from
another. It may also be a "socially rational" attitude to
take in order to hold a community together.

That is not to say that I intend to "go walkabout" any time soon.

> No. I thought it was a limited area of the US.
> When I think about it some more however. It must also
> apply to many belief systems.

Yes, it's a small area of the US where this has gone too far. I get the impression that the feeling far more widely spread throughout the US.

> It is an example of how one "world view" differs from
> another.

How is education in biology a "world view"?

> It may also be a "socially rational" attitude to
> take in order to hold a community together.

Then that community is failing it's children.

> Do you think that the public 'want' to understand?

Yes. The children certainly do.

> Who is going to
> teach them? Their beloved newspapers?!

Their teachers.

> You know aswell as I do that genetics is incredibly complicated when
> you actually get down to the gritty details.

It's not that complicated. You don't have to get down to the gritty details to understand enough to discuss GM foods. You could probably teach most of what Mendel knew at GCSE.

And politics be left to the politicians?
And allegedly beating ethnic minorities to a pulp be left to the police?

Deciding not to include the public in scientific debate because the broad sheet intellectuals consider it a bit too much for the man on the street is exactly the sort of arrogance that has existed among the scientific community which leads to the sort of luddite backlash we are currently facing.

Blaming the public because the newspapers publish misinformation, is somewhat like the old excuse "they were asking for it".

>"The broadsheet readers merely accept the points they read, whilst
>the tabloid readers go and natter/gripe to their neighbour about how >the mad and evil scientists are trying to kill the world."

And this makes which group more stupid? The group who because they think they're more intelligent accept anything written in black and white, because it's in a "proper paper", or the group who enter into some sort of debate about the subject, which may (on the off chance) lead to them recieving information from a number of differing sources allowing them to base their opinions on a range of evidence.

>Do the uninformed public have a right to discuss these matters?

Contrary to popular belief, this is still a country where there are some freedoms afforded to the populace. One of these is freedom of speech. This allows people, however poor, illiterate and stupid they may be, to talk about anything they want to, including what scientist may or may not be up to, and how likely it is that their meddlings will indeed bring about some manmade armageddon.

Also the government, which is still to some extent elected by the people, is therefore accountable to the people, and is for that reason obliged to tell the people what it's scientists are beavering away at, and whether private companies have asked it whether they can beaver away.

*Got spirited away, had to leave this for about an hour so have completely lost my train of thought, never mind*

I fully agree with Si here. Outside the realm of pure maths there is nothing at degree level that with patience and a lack of jargon could not be taught to the average 16 year old. Unfortunately academics are known neither for their patience, nor for their love of laymans terms.

The education system is still elitist. 'Students' (used generically here for anyone going through higher education) are encouraged to think that they have something special, and that something special is intellectual superiority. They don't. The special thing they have is a chance to learn, that they may teach others. Most of them do not use it.

*Monday is billious pomposity day * *I'm off to take my pills!*

>Then that community is failing it's children.

Not if through their fundamentalist beliefs they build a stronger and more cohesive society, which against a background of collapsing social order rises to social and military domination first in the states, and then across the western world. Their hard right principles make them violently agressive players on the world stage, and war soon breaks out. They are victorious and the pogroms that follow wipe out most non-christian ethnic groupings. In the bloody nuclear aftermath it is their descendants who walk the earth.

you don't have to believe in evolution to be better at it!!

"Nursery Rhymes for the Apocalypse" by Merkin

>However if science is to be advanced by individuals who cannot
>accept public guidance on occasion about what an advance IS then we
>will have to see who can do without who.

I think that's today's most important statement.

In the same way that governments who continue to do things "for the good of the people" without asking or explaining their reasons to the people soon find themselves out of power, so scientists who think that just becuase they believe in what they are doing, their work is justified, will soon find themselves to be the target of naughty crop stamping people (who are neither Sun readers nor fools, and most of whom are educated to university level or above, and regardless of your opinion of their actions, if it wasn't for them and their organisations, most of us would not even be aware of what was happening)

> >will have to see who can do without who.

> I think that's today's most important statement.

Yeah! Why couldn't this have happened to spike that evil Smallpox vaccine. Life would have been so much simpler. Well, shorter. And what about Penicillin? Talk about playing God!

I think if you'd told people at the time that you were investigating a cure for smallpox, they would have been extremely happy, in the same way that people are extremely happy when scientists today tell them they are searching for a cure for cancer.

If you had told them then that you were researching a new strain of cowpox that would kill all the cows apart from those belonging to the Duke of Argyll, they'd have lynched you, in the same way that if you tell them that you're developing seeds for the commercial benefit of one large multinational over its rivals in the industry...

I don't think you can even start to compare the scientific research which led to the vaccine for smallpox with the commercial research being conducted in *some* areas of the industry. It's probably quite insulting.

People didn't like smallpox, people don't like cancer. People *do* like to think that their pigs are pigs, and not trout, and that their shredded wheat contain only natural ingredients. Now I am as aware as you are that it's a lot more natural to engineer wheat that you don't have to spray with DMT three times a day, but then that's not what most of them are doing. They're busy engineering wheat that twice as resistant to the DMT they're spraying it with three times a day.

remember we are talking about a specific area of scientific research: commercial genetic research, not all science in general (before we all dived into some sweeping generalisations about scientists always getting it right / wrong). And yes, I don't think my life would be upset in any way if they and their products had never come about. Still, I thought the inverntion of the microwave was an abomination which would surely bring about the downfall of society, and I'm seen nothing to prove me wrong so far.

Right then, where's my pitchfork, I'm off to raise me a lynch mob...

On a slightly different subject, but having everything to do with the scientific manhandling of nature:

On several Hawaiian islands, there grows a species of choke-weed that has helped to sustain the original (untouched) Hawaiian eco-system for many hundreds of years. The advent of European exploration introduced a breed of Warthog into this eco-system, quite foriegn. Within decades this breed began to overrun the Hawaiian forests, due to the lack of natual enemies. These animals lived and flourished for hundreds of years...and then one day scentists began to detect disturbances in the environment. Entire species of birds, plant life, insects were dying out - and no one knew why. It turned out that the Warthogs primarily fed on the above mentioned indigenous choke-weed. While feeding and rutting, the Hogs not only destroyed other plants but also spread the seeds of these plants; plants which were supportive in a balanced environment, but deadly in this altered state. The eco-system is suddenly thrown into peril, all because of a breed of wild pig brought over by man. Or, rather, the *original* eco-system is thrown into peril.

As many of you have stated before, in not so many words, Nature finds a way. With or without man. So man had altered this Hawaiian environment hundreds of years prior, and now man proposes to alter it again by "rebalancing", i.e. slaughtering, the warthog population thus bringing the choke-weed population under control.

Hmmmmm.... Does anyone else see anything inherently *wrong* with this proposed plan of action? Someone mentioned playing god? At what point does this endless cycle of trying to artificially induce natural balance get out of hand?

Personally, I'm betting on the Warthog.

...just for the record, evolutionary biology IS taught in the majority of US schools, non-parochial. Fortunately, for the most part, "Separation of Church and State" is very much in effect.

Well there's a couple of viewpoints.

1. There's the "Evolutionary" approach which Si is a great supporter of, which would as you say supports letting the warthogs have the run of things, and let nature take it's course. It is likely this will lead to the extinction of many of the indiginous species in favour of the more successful euro-species, but hey, that's just nature, and we wouldn't want to mess with Mother Nature.

Is it only me that sees a bit of a contradiction between fully supportive of the scientific creation of new species, while being totally unsupportive of the preservation of the species we've had trotting around for millions of years?

2. There is the "Managed Conservation" approach much supported by NT and other groups which aims to preserve original ecosystems even to the extent of reconstructing ecosystems to return them to their origianl state. This has come under some criticism in the UK where areas of woodland have been felled to return an area to it's original moorland state. However this does encourage biodiversity and somewhere like Hawaii where there are probably many unique species would ensure their preservation.

3. There is the "Leisure Management" approach where you replace all the trees with coconut palms, put lots of white sand everywhere, cos isn't that what everyone wants out of a tropical Island?

4. There is the "Defence Testing" approach where you cover the island in Anthrax (UK), test a nuke (France), or pretend you're condutcting UFO research on it (US), and leave it to the hogs for the next 100 years.

Most active ingredinets of drugs especiall in such areas as cancer and AIDS research have come from natural sources (plants and the like). More animals and plants are now facing extinction than at any time since the Dinosaurs back-flipped into oblivion. Isn't there an advantage to our species in keeping our range of choice in terms of our natural medecine cabinet as wide as possible?

Question: Should we bother protecting endangered species from extinction?

> I don't think you can even start to compare the scientific research which led to the vaccine for smallpox with the commercial
> research being conducted in *some* areas of the industry.
...
> remember we are talking about a specific area of scientific research:

I agree, but that's not what this is...

> > > will have to see who can do without who.

> > I think that's today's most important statement.

Perhaps I misunderstood, but that sounded like "we could manage without science in general better than it could manage without us". Which, apart from being childish, is just plain wrong.

> More animals and plants are now facing extinction than at any time since the Dinosaurs back-flipped
> into oblivion.

Numbers please. What proportion of genetically distinct species are currently facing extinction? How has this proportion varied over the last 10,000 years?

Pardon me for sounding callous. Believe me, I hate the fact that animals and plants are dying off at what seems like (perhaps due to the trigger-happy media) an alarming rate. But the better part of me can't help but to think that, with human kind's help or not, these animals are dying for a reason. Natural selection and all that good stuff. But at the same time it sounds a bit hypocritical to use the word "Natural" when you are discussing extinction at the hands of man, if indeed that is what is happening. What a conundrum!

Now would probably be the wrong time to bring up Woolly Mammoths and hypothetical genetic "cloning".

>Perhaps I misunderstood, but that sounded like "we could manage
>without science in general better than it could manage without us".
>Which, apart from being childish, is just plain wrong.

I thnk the statement was more pointing out that a body of people who are relying on public / government financing (or in the case of commercial research, consumers) should be a little more aware of the views of the people providing that finance, and that if they do not retain public / consumer confidence and support, they will not retain their research grants.

Beyond the rights and wrongs of this particular area of the argument. Science is not a disembodied section of our society, a sacred body of enlightened individuals, for which it is herecy for people to question or oppose (That was the Catholic Church). If you ask your plumber to fit a bath and he builds a new irrigation system for your back garden, regardless of how good that irrigations system is, you're going to give him a slap.

If it helps, current estimates of global species biodiversity run at between 2 million and 100 million species, with best estimates being around 10-14 million. Roughly 1.7 million have so far been named.

To offset your extinction figures (I've just read estimates of 31,000 species facing extinction - 0.02% of "named" species), the Zoological Record has been updated with 340,813 new and changed species since 1978. If we're conservative, and assume that only half of these are new and ignore name changes, thats 170,000 new species. It's unlikely to have been subject to linear change over this time, but we'll assume so to make the maths possible 170,000 / 21 years = 8095 new species per year. How long before all 31,000 endangered species disappear? If it's four years or more, biodiversity is still increasing.

> But at the
> same time it sounds a bit hypocritical to use the word "Natural" when you
> are discussing extinction at the hands of man, if indeed that is what is
> happening. What a conundrum!

Not if you view man as natural. What's the difference between the Monticello dam in California and a beaver's dam?