September 20, 2009
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Are Scientists actually doing their jobs today?
The World is facing so many problems today, the scientific community is just not up to the task.
Add to that the fact that people are still saying ignorant things like, “Evolution is just a theory”, and “Global warming is just alarmist hype”.
As a science teacher I wonder that dictionary definitions of science are so lacking in depth. Here are a few examples:
1.
a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences. 2. systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation. 3. any of the branches of natural or physical science. 4. systematized knowledge in general. 5. knowledge, as of facts or principles; knowledge gained by systematic study. 6. a particular branch of knowledge. 7. skill, esp. reflecting a precise application of facts or principles; proficiency. When students first arrive in my eleventh grade chemistry class they ususally define science as:
The study of the universe.
What I attempt to teach my students in class, with varying degrees of success, is this definition of science:
Science is an iterative process of human consciousness that seeks to unite the truth found in the felt moment of immediate experience with the inherent power of human imagination to conceive a workable and accurate model of the nature of reality.
(I am not suggesting that this is the best definition possible, and if you can improve it in any way Please help me out.)
“Reality” in its most basic definition, is everything, everywhere that exists in the present moment.
The ”truth” is all that is happening now in this present moment.
Now, that begs the question, is reality the truth, or is the truth reality, when, in fact, both are subject to the perspective of the observer.
The fly in the ointment is the power of human intention …the placebo effect, as it is known, is the kink in the method that invalidates the entire process.
When a hypothesis is made it is subjected to testing …..
Unfortunately every test made is affected by the desire of the scientist to validate their pet hypothesis.
Despite the taint of this inherent problem, science is the best method we have, to date, to investigate this crazy mess of synchronicity that bombards our senses.
Science does not tell us what is true and what is false, but it does give us a way to begin to communicate that everything we think we believe in, is no more than a model in our mind’s eye. For that model to be accurate it must keep up with the fundamental understanding that change is the only universal constant.
So what change is happening Now that Science should be looking into……
BATS
Bat-killing disease remains a mystery
By Anne Paine, The (Nashville) TennesseanNASHVILLE — Cory Holliday tugged a white paper suit over his boots and clothes, zipping the front high onto his neck.Amid poison ivy and wild grape vines, he aimed a video camera toward a dark, steel-gated opening in a limestone precipice, reached by canoe on Old Hickory Lake in Wilson County. As the sunset advanced, he awaited his quarry: thousands of endangered gray bats.
The Nature Conservancy cave expert is taking part in a multiagency effort to monitor and protect bats from a scourge known as “white-nose syndrome.” The mystery illness has been responsible for widespread deaths in hibernating bat colonies in the Northeast and has now moved south.
“This winter if we get it, bats will be coming out and dying in large numbers,” Holliday said.
This month, Tennessee closed nearly every cave, sinkhole, tunnel and abandoned mine on state park and wildlife management lands to the public and earlier this year the federal government prohibited entry to such bat habitats in national forests and parks in 33 states, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The agency says humans are not considered susceptible to the illness, but people might unwittingly carry the contamination from cave to cave on shoes, clothes or gear.
It’s one of several moves being made by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies to prevent the spread of the disease and figure out the cause.
With a few exceptions, Tennessee has agreed to close caves for one year, according to the Nature Conservancy. The state is considered a prime caving destination with at least 9,600 caves. Cavers who travel long distances to spend weekends exploring the sunless frontier of mazes and caverns here have mixed feelings about the bans.
“I’m afraid that closing all the caves is a knee-jerk reaction,” said Bill Overton, a director of the Southeastern Cave Conservancy. “I also think we have one chance to get this right, and you have to take extreme action.”
Nature’s bug control
White-nose syndrome is named for the white dusting of a fungus often seen on the faces and wings of dead and dying bats. The illness was first reported in New York state in 2006, according to the U.S. Geological Survey’s Wildlife Health Center. Since then, West Virginia, Virginia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut and Vermont have reported cases.
Bats feed on insects from April to October, consuming their body weight each night, according to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. In addition to losing some endangered species of bat, more bat deaths could mean more mosquitoes and other pests that can eventually harm crops.
“Their benefit to us is unseen, but it’s so real. We think mosquito populations are bad now. We ain’t seen nothing until we lose all these bats,” said Gina Hancock, of the Nature Conservancy in Nashville.
In Tennessee, a single cave can hold 100,000 bats, according to Holliday.
“The loss of 500,000 bats means 2.4 million pounds of bugs aren’t eaten in a year,” said Richard Kirk of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.
Looking for answers
As bats began to stir, chirping could be heard coming from the cave on Old Hickory Lake. Through the course of an hour, Holliday’s thermal, infrared camera captured the presence of about 17,000 bats as they emerged from the cave.
Researchers are using the equipment to count the bat population. The data will be compared with next year’s count in an effort to determine whether the disease is present.
Summer roosts in caves, like where the counts are taking place in Tennessee, aren’t seen in the Northeast, Holliday said. He adds, that winter hibernation is critical. Bats that grow ill with the fungus, which tends to thrive in cool temperatures, can wake up frequently, burning up their fat supplies, he said. They’ll fly out to seek insects, which won’t be there because it’s winter. They can weaken and die.
“Everything is pointing to the fungus being the primary cause, but we haven’t been able to prove it,” Holliday said. “It could be a secondary infection and there’s something else knocking down their immune system.”
After turning off his camera, Holliday scrubbed his boots and equipment with water mixed with bleach and wadded his paper coveralls into a sealed plastic bag for disposal. To avoid the possibility of spreading any contamination, he has repeated the process nightly since May as he goes to caves around the state.
Overton said caving groups are telling its members to decontaminate after every trip underground in hopes of preventing the spread of the illness.
“I’m confident there is no perfect answer,” he said.
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Comments (10)
We do not think much about bats and bees but if they disappear then so will we. I don’t understand why people don’t get it. I have not seen many post by you. Have I just missed them or have you not been around much. Judu
Dear Doug,
I was pleasantly surprised to find that you had posted an entry after so long. Just last week in a telephone conversation with Liz (Queen of Swords, also not active on Xanga these days) I asked if she was in contact with you. I think she told me you were busy and not blogging as much. I scaled back a bit after my hip operation, but I’m beginning to get active again. I’m finding that a lot of the “ol gang” isn’t blogging as much. Judi, who commented above, still posts each and every day, bless her heart. (I need to visit her as well.)
I totally agree with your “definition” of science, and I also agree with the statement made at the beginning of your essay. I remember when I first came across the “Creationist Museum” website. The museum has displays which show dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark. Whoa! I simply can’t believe that some of the Bible Belt crazies are naive enough to blindly believe some of the crap they dish out. Perhaps some in the scientific community are just tired of fighting.
As I read your entry, I can’t help but think of old Bernard Scopes, the science teacher back in the 20s who had the nerve to read passages from the Origin of Species in class. I haven’t attended school in a long long time, but I hope the tenor of the times does not completely eradicate the teachings of science in America. (Except in Kansas, I suppose. That state always is at the center of the firestorm.)
Similarly, I can’t believe that I am still reading supposedly erudite articles (online, natch) from adults who still discount the notion of global warming. Our global “wait and see” attitude will probably not abate until the ice caps are melted, we’re all blind and dying from skin cancer and under water to boot.
Nice to read you again.
Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool
:spinning: death & rebirth in the present moment
good to read you again Brother Dos i hope it’s not just a teaser things are just now getting interesting :coolman: mag
it’s so good to see you back here again after such a long hiatus. i hope, like beck, that you aren’t just teasing us :sunny:
it would be great to chat with you sometime, get caught up, ask you some amethyst questions. i used one of your photos for a mandala for my 2010 calendar! thanks for the permission.
check out this website: http://www.stone.pequals.com/
hope you are well.
sue
Glad to see YOU are back from the grave :coolman:
RYC—Guess i got that Tom Joad complex…Henry Fonda’s parting monologue in “Grapes of Wrath” is etched in my soul
welcome back friend! and once again you leave me with much to think about! missed you! hope life has been good to you!
These are perilous times, inside the cave and out.
Present moment, indeed.
Blessings~
I have noticed more fungus around in the past few years. More mushrooms that is… i don’t know what the other fungi would be called but there’s always some weird growths popping up here and there. Also chemicals and stuff can cause all kinds of things to happen with animals species like the bald eagles having really thin egg shells for their babies not growing up. And the bees being transported so much that they are becoming insane and disappearing (actually that’s probably the most sane a bee could be to leave the hustle and bustle of transporation behind or the fact that the wild bees are gathering them to take them off to their own)… But tell me why can’t some catastrophy happen to roaches or something like that lol they’re everywhere!
i have that same feeling- as if time is sliding by so quickly that there is very little left. at first i thought it was bc of my own aging process, but the sense of urgency grows nearly daily, i fear! not sure why, but i know it’s how i feel. most ppl laugh it off, but it doesn’t change my feelings!
hi i am a friend & neighbor of beck’s (mag) she said i would enjoy your stuff i too am teacher austin