Daniel Dvorkin @medigoth@qoto.org
Bioinformaticist / biostatistician, veteran medic and infantryman, armchair paleontologist, occasional science fiction author, vaccinated liberal patriot.
Joined Oct 2022
"You're thinking 'Did he fire six shots or only five?' Now to tell you the truth, I've forgotten myself in all this excitement. But being the only way to know for sure is to open the cylinder, you've gotta ask yourself a question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya ... physicist?"
About the assumptions we make in #DeepTime.
It is a mistake to think of #nature as warm and cuddly. Many, perhaps most, #violent encounters between #humans and #wildlife are the result of the former treating the latter as #Disney characters.
One reason "#birds are #dinosaurs" made immediate sense to me was a vivid childhood memory: when I was about ten, I thought some #goslings were cute and wanted to pet them. #Mother #Goose had other ideas. Yeah, don't do that.
It is *equally* a mistake to assume nature is All #Killing, All The Time. Fighting takes a lot of energy, and wild animals—including our own distant ancestors—are in constant peril of #starvation. Even a minor #injury can lead to #infection and #death.
Violence is a tool of survival, to be sure, whether in #predation, self-defense, or squabbles over #territory and #mating. Unnecessary violence is a quick road to #extinction. Most animals would rather do something else, when they can.
So before you fall back on "red in tooth and claw" as a default, look for other explanations. They're usually more interesting anyway.
For once, a story about a new kind of #spacecraft #propulsion that's *not* vaporware depending on hypothetical #physics breakthroughs! Unsurprisingly, that also means it's a lot less exciting than the stuff that gets hyped as being able to take us to the #stars. Evolutionary, not revolutionary. But still pretty neat.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a60654632/next-generation-ion-thruster-nasa/
Nice overview. TL;DR: feathers are awesome. :)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-feathers-are-one-of-evolutions-cleverest-inventions
It's so cute when #creationists try to sound sciencey. Like little kids misusing big words to try to impress the grown-ups.
I just coined "#Xycophancy" to describe the thought processes of #Musk stans and I'm very proud of myself.
Their entire worldview is antebellum, so this tracks. 😐
"You think you have it bad? Lemme tell ya ..."
Stop. Nothing good comes after that.
Holy shit, the #House passed a solid #Ukraine aid bill. Miracles can happen.
Of course they could have passed the #Senate version weeks ago [1] but this is, fortunately, a case where "better late than never" really does apply. Ukraine has suffered terribly due to the pointless delay, but I have a reasonable expectation the Senate will pass it quickly, #Biden will sign it immediately, and the aid will be on its way in short order. If nothing else, this should put a serious dent in #Russian plans for a late spring / summer #offensive.
I have no idea what's going on in #Johnson's head [2]. If he wants to be yet another #Putin / #Trump tool [3] like so much of the #Republican Party clearly does, he could have kept delaying practically forever. If he wants to do what's best for the country, for any value of "best," he should have done that already. Ukraine will benefit from this aid, absolutely. The benefit would have been considerably greater if Ukrainian cities hadn't suffered under Russian #missile strikes without adequate air defenses and Ukrainian soldiers had enough #artillery shells to break up Russian formations at the front.
Oh yeah: *please* do not turn this into a discussion about Israel and Palestine. That conversation is going on elsewhere, all over the entire internet. Plenty of forums to say your piece. My post isn't one of them. I'm talking about Ukraine here, and that's all.
[1] Months? I've lost track.
[2] Huh-huh, huh-huh.
[3] These lines just write themselves.
In light of this, the current "#HellChicken" a.k.a. #Anzu should be promoted to Hell Turkey, while the as-yet-unnamed small variety should be Hell Cornish Game Hen.
I see a lot of people talking about #science as a #religion, or the closely related idea of "#scientism," the purported ideology that says science is the only way to know things. Oh, I'm not talking about *you*, they'll solemnly assure anyone who objects. Naturally you know better. Just ... you know ... them. Those people, out there. The great unwashed. On the #internet, nobody knows how long it's been since you took a shower.
You know what I hardly ever see? The phenomenon in question.
There are people who think that way. Yes. Ideologues of science—hardly if ever #scientists themselves—who invoke The #Scientific Method™ (that's a whole 'nother rant) as the be-all and end-all justification for whatever nonsense they spew. Such posts and comments have crossed my feed a time or two. But they are *vastly* outnumbered by those who complain about them, at least where I can see both groups. I have no reason to believe my experience is atypical in this regard.
As a scientist myself, I think science is a very good way to understand certain things. In my field, it's the best way to know what makes you sick, and hopefully what will make you better. There are other ways to learn these things, sure, and many of them can be useful places to *start*. If you don't end up with a #clinical #trial sooner or later, you're as likely to kill as cure.
To know what we're seeing when we look up at the lights in the sky. How the natural world around us, of which we're a part whether we like it or not, changes and how we both affect and are affected by that change. What came before us, and what might come after. The fundamental building blocks of reality. All these *require* science for real understanding. If you try to puzzle them out any other way, you may learn something, but you'll also fill your head with a lot of nonsense. Sorting the wheat from the chaff later is a lot harder than doing it right the first time.
Other questions are at least *amenable* to scientific inquiry, although that process itself may not be enough. What my fiancee does as a #historian looks, to me, a lot like what I do as a #biomedical #researcher. Make observations, construct #hypotheses, gather evidence, test and revise. (And revise, and revise, and ...) But #history vanishes every minute. What's left is always fragmentary, and shaped by the interactions of modern minds with those long since gone to dust. There will never be an objective truth, only the truest story that can be told.
And then there are things beyond any kind of quantitative analysis, or even rigorous qualitative description. We may be able to agree on what makes a true story, more or less, but what makes a *good* one? That's inherently personal. A happy marriage, a tasty meal, a satisfying job—only we can define what these goals mean for ourselves. Science may at best, occasionally, provide vague guidelines. Even then, my advice will not determine your experience.
My perspective is unusual in one key way, sure: not too many people do science for a living, at least not compared to other jobs. With regards to the way people *talk* about science, I think it's not unusual at all, except maybe that I pay particular attention.
The division above—things that clearly belong in science's domain, things that clearly don't, and a whole bunch in the middle—is a whole lot more common than the idea of science as the One True. It's at least *somewhat* more common than blanket rejection of science too, but not as much as it should be. That's also a rant for another time.
Which all makes me wonder what people who never miss a chance to bring up "scientism" and science-as-religion get out of it.
#Troodon may once again be a valid #genus. Or, uh, so I've heard.
#Brontosaurus is smiling, and #Diatryma is waiting patiently.
Huh, I can now write about #antivax without frothing at the mouth *too* much. That's progress, I guess.
Bioinformaticist / biostatistician, veteran medic and infantryman, armchair paleontologist, occasional science fiction author, vaccinated liberal patriot.
Joined Oct 2022
