SUBJECTIVE SCIENCE

            When I say the above phrase, scientists bristle.  But when THE ECONOMIST says it, apparently everyone's fine with it.  The reason I'm drawn to examples of subjective science is because the more our western culture worships science, the more hubris surrounds it.

             The result is that things we think we know may not be so.  This latest example involves a keystone species:  the lowly dung beetle.  Like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, dung beetles are iconic measurements of overall ecosystem function.  You could say that as dung beetles go, so goes the environment.

             In fact, they're used so extensively in environment benchmarks that they are a key monitor on results of logging, livestock grazing, and road building.  Of course, to measure dung beetles you have to trap them with enticing bait.  Guess what that is?  Poop.

             But it turns out that some poop is more attractive than others.    A researcher set up several bait sites in Brazil and found that human poop attracted way more than animals in the existing ecosystem.  In addition to a huge difference in numbers attracted, even diversity of species varied.

             The point is that entire scientific papers have been written about ecosystem destruction based on dung beetle activity and until now, nobody thought to ask:  "I wonder if they like some poop bait more than others?"  The result is that if jaguar poop is used in one trap area and monkey poop in another, the dung beetle data can be off by a multiplicative factor.  

             When I use the phrase subjective science, it's not meant to denigrate scientists; it's simply meant to create a bit of humility in a paradigm that presents itself as infallible.  I'd just like to see some disclaimers, some stutter steps, rather than the brash and arrogant attitude exhibited by scientists.  They told us to stop eating butter. 

            They told us to use anti-microbial soap.  Now they're telling us to quit eating meat.  And many are confident we're all going to be dead in 14 years.  I just listened to a podcast where the scientist assured us humans are doomed.  Irreversible.  We'll all be dead shortly.  And we can't even objectively measure dung beetles?

             The problem is we can only measure what we can imagine.  We can only see what we can imagine.  And the universe is far more complex than our imagination.  So enjoy the ride.  What if the sun is electric?

             Have you ever known something that later you learned wasn't true?