(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . It's More Complicated Than That! [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-03 One of the reasons that public education is often hated in this country is that many people like simple answers to difficult questions. As I noted in a diary on outreach a while back, when I was invited to speak on insects at a fundamentalist school, I asked the students why insects were limited in size. I expected the answer that their tracheal breathing system, their open circulatory system and their molting limitations probably were involved (we don’t have conclusive proof of these, but the reasoning seems sound.) Instead I got “Because God made them that way.” After I explained what I had wanted, I got no further questions or comments. I was never invited back! Almost any question about the functioning of the natural world becomes complicated when examined closely. How do flies land upside down on ceilings? How do birds find their way during long migrations? How do soil communities work? How do bumble bees even fly? Why is life so diverse? Ad infinitum! Most of these questions have been at least partially answered, but then there are others, ultimate questions, that are even harder to solve, such as what is life? and what existed before the universe? As Neil Degrasse Tyson points out in one of his lectures, we may actually not be able to understand ultimate reality. However, we have made great progress in understanding the proximate questions using, ahem, science! The longer I worked as a field biologist the more I appreciated the interconnectedness of life and how dangerous it was to try and apply simple answers to what are really complex questions. To some it may be a “liberal plot to discredit common sense and tried and true ways,” but to those of us who have actually worked in the field, the interconnectedness and complexity are features of the reality we have, not some fancy-pants ramblings of a woke, would be intellectual. For example, mass spraying of biocides may adversely affect the ecosystem involved, oft times not the pest. Spraying vast areas of grassland to control grasshoppers when a survey of the area indicates that there are few actually economic species present, wastes resources and may damage the services offered by the ecosystem. Grasshoppers are a varied lot and often if you just count grasshoppers without separating the species you get a false impression of the problem, as I noted in an earlier diary on biocides. Also anecdotal occurrences do not predict results. Grasshopper infestations that are really damaging may not recur the next year and Spruce Budworm infestations as well, may often not repeat. The land owner may not appreciate this as they might need to have something to sell that year or may want to sell the property, and the devastated crops or defoliated trees (as with Budworms) might not help their economic situation. The interconnectedness of life is captured well in the book, Entangled Life, by Merlin Sheldrake. Sheldrake is interested in the interconnectedness of plants and their fungal partners that exists under our feet. Of course plants (and also algae) are basic to the existence of life on earth because they produce much of the food that we and other animals eat, directly or indirectly through photosynthesis, as well as the oxygen that we breath. Thus the metaphor the tapestry of life. Instead of food chain, always think of food web. The fruiting body of a large mycorrhizal system , Amanita muscaria, Magnuson Park, Washington. Part of my professional work was in taxonomy and systematics, but it should be recognized that life does not exist as individual entities, but is connected through the environment with all sorts of other living organisms and nonliving factors. Thus when I picked on a specific taxonomic grouping I was only singling out the individual organism and essentially ignoring the system of which it was a part, except for a few biological notes I included if they were known. It is sometimes necessary to look at such organisms individually, but one should never think that this is what nature is about — individual species. They are just a cog in the larger picture, that is interconnected throughout the planet. By same token, molecular biology is a very useful and enlightening area of study, but an organism is more than the sum of its parts. You cannot define an automobile by its wheels or doors, or even engine. Foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains, Arizona. Desert, but still a complex community. We humans are “only” a part of the biosphere, but we have treated it as if we were not the tenants, but its owner. A developer looks at a forest and thinks of board feet, followed by real estate, something they can profit off of. An ecologist looks at a forest and sees a intricate community that is necessary for our well being because it provides services that we cannot provide. Elon Musk recently noted that we need more people and indicated that he (and his wife- not sure he mentioned her in this) has 11 children. We do indeed need more people to maintain the Ponzi Scheme that big capitalism has become. but perhaps we should instead develop a new theory of economics acknowledging that we can never just do one thing- all actions have consequences just because all things are connected in one way or another. These consequences may be almost non-existent, small or large, but they are there, and some of them could be deadly to our very existence. We need people who can analyse the problems and find the best or, failing this, the least worst solutions, but we don’t need to overpopulate the earth with bodies, even (and perhaps especially) if we believe those bodies to be useful to somebody's dreams of world domination! There is such a thing as carrying capacity and it is likely that we are surpassing it! Starvation, war and disease lie in that direction. Rain Forest, Asa Wright Nature Centre, Trinidad. A truly complex system! In addition we can apply the concept of diversity to our own civilization in the United States. Society is made up of all sorts of people and at its best this fact is taken into account. We try to accommodate differing cultures and standards, as long as they do not interfere with the proper function of the society and the rights that everybody should enjoy as noted by Jefferson in the Declaration. Jefferson’s idea of all men being created equal (I know, he did not include women), as hypocritical as he might have been about his own actions in that regard, was condemned by Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander Stevens in his "Cornerstone Speech" on March 21, 1861 as being in error. We really cannot afford to dispense with Jefferson’s idea if we want a sustainable society. Like an ecosystem we will do better in a diverse society than in one dominated by one “race” and one religion. Tribalism might have served a purpose in the past, but it ill serves us in the environmental crisis in which we are now engaged. What to do about the charge that we believers in complexity can never make a decision because we are too tied up with indecision? Well, in environmental concerns, as well as the political concerns that often impinge on them, we need to gather data. If we are lucky the data will show us the best way to proceed, but if the question is more ambiguous, we just have to weight the alternatives and make a decision based on our best guess. No indecision necessary. While the universe is complicated, we can’t let that stop us from making an informed guess in such situations, especially when indecision might prove fatal. We do need to examine ourselves for bias, but then go ahead, once we have done our due diligence. Gut feelings may be useful sometimes, but never without previous information, at least in my opinion! [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/3/2243919/-It-s-More-Complicated-Than-That?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/