Home »
There’s a number but there isn’t
There is a good reason many people don’t become scientists.
It’s not because they are dumb, aka stupid, or thick as drooling posts. And it’s not because they blew chunks in 101 science and realized their dream of becoming a (insert profession requiring science degree) was dissolving into a repeat nightmare commonly known as ‘the rat wheel,’ in which they race on and on and never get anywhere before finally being consumed by a fat cat or some greasy weasel.
Alas, such is life and all.
Many people choose to keep nice and clear of science because it treads unsympathetically upon their religious clinging, while others avoid science because it just bores the crap out of them.
Still others dodge the concepts of science because they truly are morons who find difficulty in chewing gum, let alone chewing gum and driving. While these people are hilarious to watch, they just don’t matter much when it comes to the great debate that I am making up right now called ‘Science versus Silly.’
Scientists, those heavily sighing souls, burdened by the complex question of how to make the rest of the eeking and ooking and aahh aahh aahhing home sapien sapiens around them understand what it is they are trying to get funding from the government for, continue to do their important work and operate in relative obscurity.
And for that we should all be grateful, and also a little bit resentful.
For starters, Sir Isaac Newton told us all about gravity, which as you can understand, if he hadn’t, we’d all be in a nasty pickle. The good old maxim, what goes up must come down, which essentially led Newton down a complicated mathematics trail, has allowed mankind to achieve flight, it made Michael Jordan something special on the basketball court and mountain climbers have forever since been grateful.
One cannot offer enough gratitude to the scientists and discoverers who informed we monkeys that the Earth was round and not flat, as we had believed up to that point, and that all led us to where we are now, eagerly awaiting the next thrilling chapter of the Transformer movie series.
Scientists have provided us with forensics studies that allow us to prove all sorts of nasty things and they’ve given us cures and vaccines and all sorts of knowledge that if applied wisely leads to a better world.
They’ve also been responsible for such things as plastics and earth-fouling chemical concoctions and nuclear energy.
Scientists think long and hard and deep and many of them represent some of the finest examples of human evolution in terms of their vastly superior minds. While they are contemplating such things as impossible mathematical equations or how many species there are in the world, most of us are chatting excitedly about hockey scores or theorizing whether Jennifer Aniston has had breast enhancements. Still others are dreaming lustily about 71 virgins while strapping TNT to their chests and yet others are casting powerful scornful hate toward peoples who are different than they.
Not shockingly, it is the scientists who produce the technologies that allow for the purest killing machines to be invented.
Many of those same killing machines have been responsible for cutting into this figure, which I have taken an enormous segue roundabout to bring up: there are 8.7 million species on Earth.
Darwin would faint and smoke his forehead against a spittoon. The cataloguer of species would also note that only 10% of those 8.7 million different critters have actually been ‘discovered.’
So, in short, scientists have given us a number but that number could be off a tad.
Forget about the lingering uncertainty, a study published in PLoS Biology, a journal from the Public Library of Science, says this is significant because it is the most precise estimated total of species in the world up to now, with past guesses ranging between 100 million and a skinny three million.
Equally not surprising is the fact that 6.5 million of those species are land beasties, while the other 2.2 million are ocean-based life forms. The report also notes that 91% of the beasties in the ocean have yet to be discovered.
How they arrive at those precise numbers is truly beyond me. For I am not a scientist. I am someone who’d rather know how his hockey team managed to lose yet another close game than someone who pretends to understand the convenience in scientific reporting in terms of the ‘almost, roughly, thereabout, we’re just really guessing and hoping to spur a government grant or impress Greenpeace sufficiently to wrestle some coin from their well-greased mitts.’
Not only does this latest ‘finding’ leave me chuckling because it sounds so arbitrary, but there is the fact that scientists of certain white lab coat stripes have been laboring over this question for 260 freaking years.
Swedish genius Carl Linnaeus sent modern taxonomy rolling back in the 1700s, and microscope peering bug freaks have been tacking on new species after new species ever since.
All that said, discovering new species is vital to our continued well-being on this planet, as each new critter we discover we can find out if we want to eat it or mash it into a paste to rub on our lesions and boo-boos.
That’s got to be good, right?
Well, don’t hold your breath waiting for a renewed push on taxonomy.
The study suggests that it would cost more than $360 billion (US) to have 300,000 taxonomists working over a period of 1,200 years to classify the list of unknown species – as thrown out in a wild guess by some scientists.
Seeing as how the discovery of some newt in Brazil or a crustacean living in the Marianas Trench could be the lynch pin to the discovering of a cure for cancer or addictions to schmaltzy television, it makes complete sense that our governments will continue to fund dead-end wars and the CBC and drive our societies into quagmires of our owning making.
The way things are going, science, like the arts and other sociologically useful things, will see less funding as move forward. Meaning more guess-work and ‘thereabouting’ will take place, which is perfect for such shiny, happy maniacs as the bug-eyed Fox News loaves and some scientific journals that publish exciting news about numbers that aren’t really, totally, completely firm.
But they just don’t work for me. Are you sure it’s 8.7 million? I don’t think so. I’m going to throw out 8.8 million, which is a sexier number and science flat out needs more sex.
Science versus silly is why more people don’t become scientists. Most people would rather hang onto faith in something beyond this plain or tsk-tsk Britany Spears for being a messy puppet, than apply their minds to questions that could directly benefit mankind, or eradicate it.
Ian Cobb/e-KNOW
