Debt Rattle September 5 2015
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Russell Lee Saloon, Craigville, Minnesota Aug 1937 • US Stocks End Sharply Lower After Jobs Report (MarketWatch) • China’s Central Banker Says His Nat
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle September 5 2015]I’m afraid I winced, again, at the announcement of the “new mathematical discovery about predator-prey relationships”.
It’s not new. And this isn’t even a “study” in the old meaning; it’s a meta-study, hashing over data from previous publications. There are problems with those.
Population dynamics is something I have specialized in. The great majority of “amazing discoveries” in this metastudy have been well understood for at least 50 years. The idea that ANYONE ever expected predator populations to rise in a linear relationship to prey numbers is just astonishing bullshit – NO ONE who has actually stepped outside the lab and looked at real animals would every make that suggestion. Gee whiz- prey eat “grass”, mostly; predators eat prey (mostly) – their life dynamics, intra-species relationships, territory requirements, are parsecs apart. They never increase, expand, or stabilize in anything like similar ways.
The metastudy authors DID come up with some useful observations, particularly the idea that predator-prey dynamics are so very similar across many taxa. That IS interesting, and even a little surprising. Cool.
But the blather about “looky what we discovered, all by our selfs, that nobody ever thought of before!” is not only bullshit, it’s dangerous to our civilization. Science is very badly regulated today, and the amount of money and life times being expended on studying problems that were well studied many decades ago is horrifying. You would think being able to google a point would make younger scientists more widely educated, aware. But the opposite seems to be the case. Within the disciplines where I have professional awareness, newly minted PhDs seem to have 1/10th or so of the basic information once required.
Yeah, I know; sounds like typical “old guy” crankiness about “young guys” – but – there is hard evidence. Like this, in the NYT last week: ” Since 1986, though, when scientists discovered human pheromones —…” Really? 1986? So how is it I took an intensive 1:1 reading course on human pheromones, with a research Endocrinologist, in 1973? And one of the things we discussed in detail was the amount of documentation in literature about the human awareness of human pheromones, going back into antiquity. Ever heard of musk based perfumes? Musks are animal pheromones; that cross react with humans. And we knew that. And the writer didn’t get that year via Google; but from scientists. Oh, and, this NYT article is not in any way science- is a giggle piece – laughing mostly at science.
winced, Ilargi, not at your interest; but at the horrifyingly inadequate filtering of “science”, both inside science, and via journalists.
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