“Standing on the shoulders of giants” is what scientists say to acknowledge the work they are building on. It is a statement of humility and mostly accompanied by citations to the primary literature preceding the current work. In today’s competitive scientific enterprise, however, such humility appears completely misplaced.
UPDATE : I’m still not completely sure I understood Churchland accurately, but there are comments suggesting I may just have completely misunderstood her replies to the interviewer. Read the interview and judge for yourself! I really like Patricia Churchland.
As part of my scheduled re-posts during the summer break, I’ll also post some of the science videos from the archives. I originally posted these two on February 24, 2013: The first one is a TED talk by Michael Dickinson on how flies fly: and the second one is on recording from fly visual neurons during flight and non-flight.
This is the tweetlog covering July 3-5: Interesting! We find something similar in flies: Live fast, die young: Long-lived mice are less active https://feedly.com/k/16RDz21 It smells fishy: Copper prevents fish from avoiding danger https://feedly.com/k/12gw14F @ biocs @ google Yes!
[]{style=“font-family: "calibri";”} I attended the UCL Neuroscience Symposium on Friday, an event showcasing work being carried out by scientists at UCL and its partners in to all areas of Neuroscience – from Developmental Neuroscience to Disorders of the Nervous System, and a lot in between!
I just got back from attending the IBRO World Congress in Florence and the CNS*2011 meeting in Stockholm. All I can say is: lucky me. Okay, clearly that’s not all I can say. They were both wonderful meetings and it was great to see so much good neuroscience going on. IBRO had quite the turnout with 4,200 people attending this year.
Well, it's the first sampler since June, but I won't try to make up for lost time. Todd Wood has started a blog, and it's excellent. His slant is unique -- he's a young-earth creationist -- but his writing is superb and his expertise in genetics and genomics is world-class. My favorite entry so far: a commentary on a recent report describing genetic variation among humans.
It's snowing again. Cycling seems like a childhood memory. You'd think this would give me more opportunities to work on blog posts. Gah. My friends and colleagues, Debbie and Loren Haarsma, were the subject of a nice local news story, focusing on their work as scientists and Christians. They have a superb new book out, which I've promised to review here sometime soon. Is evolution too difficult or complicated for secondary students to grasp?
We interrupt this series on "junk DNA" and rampant folk science to bring you a months-overdue Journal Club. I wonder how many of my readers remember this little tidbit of American genius: I remember some very funny spoofs, mostly on T-shirts. (Back then, I think the Internet was still a toy for geeks at the NCSA.) "This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. This is your brain on drugs with a side of bacon.
Optimism or delusions of grandeur? Bullish or blinkered? Looking on the bright side, or gazing through rose-colored glasses? Am I a romantic, or am I just in denial? I do consider myself a romantic, and this blog is a testament to a particular form of optimism that I just can't shake off: I'm ever hopeful that people (like me) can learn new things and change their minds.