When Science And Politics Intersect . . .

. . strange coincidences occur.

Discovery News reports on a dinosaur that looks like a "chicken from hell." The fossil was found in the Hell Creek Rock Formation that runs through the Dakotas. The dinosaur "was a giant raptor, but with a chicken-like head and presumably feathers." Scientists claim is was "a mixed-up collage of chicken, cassowary and non-avian dinosaur — all rolled into one species." 

Sixty-six million years later South Dakota politics remains "a mixed up collage" of birds that can't fly and dinosaurs. Some things never change.

So Lint Is Really Alive?

From the IO9.com post "Our bellybuttons are home to hundreds of undiscovered species,"

The Belly Button Biodiversity project recently began taking DNA samples from people's navels to find out what bacteria is living within. Of the roughly 1,400 bacterial strains discovered thus far, at least 662 of them are completely unknown.

First, I know universities should promote inquiry at all levels and that students and professors should possess an endless curiosity, but does America really need a "Belly Button Biodiversity Project?"  The article makes a case to be made for such a project;

That's a dramatic result, but the researcher say it shouldn't necessarily be considered too surprising. Indeed, they say it's a testament to just how little we actually know about bacterial diversity. Team member Jeri Hulcr says this is the microbial equivalent of European explorers setting eyes on African game for the first time - once you get used to the fact of their existence, they quickly stop seeming all that exotic.

Still, shouldn't university types have access to a creative writing professors who could help them come up with a better name?

For example, one could call this The Fantastic Voyage Meets Star Treks Project.  The Fantastic Voyage crew could shrink down the various Starship Enterprises so it could be inserted into subjects' navels.

The various Star Trek crews could continue to "seek out new life" and boldly go where no one has gone before."

The Trek crews would have to argue about whether Kirk, Picard, Janeway, or Archer should be the lead captain, but it would be entertaining.

Why Ask Only One Kind of Question?

Rod Dreher, a blogging Crunchy Conservative, writes about Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think by Elaine Howard Ecklund.  Dreher mines one quotation that really caught my eye; many scientists apparently believe " [i]f the answer to a question [can] not be found through science, then why ask it at all?"

That attitude scares me. First, it carries the science fiction attitude illustrated by The Six Million Dollar Man to its conclusion.  The television program's intro begins, "We have the technology; we can rebuild him . . . .to be better than he was before, bigger, stronger, faster. . ."  That opening conveniently ignores the fact that failed technology caused the damage that necessitated turning Steve Austin into a cyborg.  Second, it assumes that being "better" is limited to physical attributes not intellectual or spiritual characteristics.

Likewise, believing that one shouldn't seek answers to questions that science can't answer ignores the fact that questions are necessary for all human endeavors.  Asking why Hamlet acts the way he does or asking what one can learn from that answer has little scientific relevance, but that doesn't mean one shouldn't ask those questions.  To the best of my knowledge, there's no scientific way to create art, but that doesn't make art whether concrete or abstract unworthy of study.  It also doesn't obviate the need to question the processes that allow one to create art.  Even at the scientific level, one may accept that the universe operates on mathematical principles but that acceptance shouldn't stop one from asking why the numbers work.

Arguing that questions that can't answer shouldn't be pursued seems to indicate a lack of curiosity, the same curiosity that enabled many of the world's greatest scientific discoveries.  In short it's a self defeating attitude.

Unfortunately, its a view that students express with alarming regularity.  If they're not curious now, there's little hope that they'll develop it in the future.  Many economists predict that the current generation of high school students will be the first American generation to be less well off then their parents.  The best way to avoid that fate seems to be to ask questions both scientific and philosophical.  If scientists don't want to ask those questions, it's doubtful these students will be willing to.