[ExI] confused trees and bees

[spike]

>… On Behalf Of Alex Blainey
Subject: Re: [ExI] confused trees and bees, FW: Season's Greetings from the Federation

 

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From: spike <spike66 at att.net> 

 
 
>>…  We have a million pairs of eyes and no good way to integrate observations.  … how can we ever notice collectively if things like millipedes, woodlice and roaches went missing?
>>>spike
 
Upon further pondering this topic it occurred to me that as we mechanize observation techniques and externalize many categories of knowledge, we may be losing ground in our ability to integrate and interpret observations.
 
Consider the original example, declining insect populations.  Think about this: we once spent a lot of intellectual energy learning about different types of ants, learning their habits, observing them (those of us who did that sort of thing, such as Darwin. 
 
See Origin of Species Chapter 7 http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/origin/chapter7.html and go ahead and read it, or just read part of that chapter to get a feel for what I am going on about, how a scientist in those days would really watch something, think about it, then come up with startling insights.
 
Now we are externalizing information with our new tools.  We don’t really need to memorize much, which is good: we have the internet and with these modern phones we can have it with us when we are outdoors.  So we don’t need to memorize all those species, but there is something else: if we don’t memorize those species, we are less likely to know much about them, which means we are less able to notice if anything is amiss and less able to understand what we are seeing.
 
With the possibility of low cost instruments and data loggers, we are mechanizing one aspect of science: we can collect observations.  But those instruments cannot ponder what they are measuring.  We have the possibility of a stunning replication of observational opportunities, but at the same time we may be suffering from a decline in our collective capacity to interpret what we are seeing.
 
spike
 
 

 

 

 

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