#50036: Keith — 11/21  at  09:57 AM
I'm the same way when it comes to Information Science. "What do you mean, you don't know what dtatabase specificity means!? It's so simple!"

Conversely, I like to break out the techno babble every once in a while, especially when it's assumed that, because I'm a librarian, all I do is alphabetize books. As if Librarianship somehow stayed in the nineteenth century and it's all Dewey and his damnable decimal system. We have computers now and everything.

#50039: Axiom — 11/21  at  10:24 AM
By the way, here is a link to the abstract of that paper (follow the links on the right to get to the full text).

For papers outside my field, I tend to read them backwards. For example, I happened upon this phrase towards the end of this paper (lost the subscript-m font in my hasty cut and paste...):

The average efficiency is 86% for speeds above 0.65 Lm s-1 and 93% for speeds above 1.6 Lm s-1, with efficiencies for a handful of jet events reaching 95-97% at speeds above 0.9 Lm s-1.

Okay, 97% efficiency has caught my interest. Step two: what's an "Lm"?

Of course, somewhere in the middle of the gap between the abstract and the juicy conclusion is a whole bunch of math and diagrams. That's where Scientific Computing (cue dramatic theme: bum BUM!) comes into play.

Seriously, I think this is an excellent example that sometimes things are just hard. They require thought, reading, more thought, some math, some thought, etc. Even someone who is already exceedingly well educated in the field is taken aback by the fact that, no, it's not the easiest thing in the world to pick up an eight page paper discussing a lengthy research project in detail, glance over it and say, "Oh, yes, it's obvious."

In sum: I think this summarizes the whole "irreducible complexity" fallacy nicely. "I don't get it, ergo NO ONE could possibly get it. It must be MAGIC!"

#50040: — 11/21  at  10:29 AM
But they're machines! Look, "jets" and "funnels". They must be designed!

#50041: — 11/21  at  10:33 AM
Your comprehension is OK. Hydrodynamics is so exceedingly complex that most cases cannot be modelled matematically but have to be investigated in a wind tunnels or equivalent physical models. In design, we still use empirical formulas proposed by Scottish engineers 150 years ago with correction factors nobody can explain.

On the other hand, I would not generalize about engineers ("So, yeah, I think engineers are smart people").

#50043: — 11/21  at  10:40 AM
You got a glimpse of what science looks like to most people, why there can be such contempt for science as obfuscatory, why one needs to respect areas of expertise, why a history professor can write total nonsense about evolution, why one needs to understand levels of knowledge, why answering questions is a special art, why those who can explain are so revered.

#50045: Ken Cope — 11/21  at  11:02 AM
I would not generalize about engineers.

Even after the night of the living Wallys?

What about the Salem hypothesis?

#50047: — 11/21  at  11:03 AM
Just as an aside, I love the term 'jet orifice'.

(Seems to me that phrase should be used for something...)

#50048: — 11/21  at  11:06 AM
Axiom, that is the link. The right question for a IDer is not the irreducible complexity of the squid propulsion system (since any contracting ball with an orifice is useful for propulsion), but how a squid with a relatively unsophisticated brain is able to compute and decide real-time between elongated jet and periodic vortex ring propulsion? Is not these one more of those unsolvable mysteries, wouldn't you say it requires a higher intelligence?

#50049: — 11/21  at  11:06 AM
PZ, I have a PhD in physics, but I can barely get through the undergraduate level explanations you write about in your blog. It's just too far removed from my knowledge base and experience, and sometimes there is so much information that I just can't absorb it all. I have full sympathy for your current trouble with fluid dynamics.

SKR is right that many people see all science as confusing and obfuscatory, and therefore disregard it. Sometimes even very smart people with very specialized knowledge in their own field get so confused by another person's field that they assume they can't understand it, rather than assuming they posses the intellect but lack the background. I find those cases to be extremely sad.

#50050: — 11/21  at  11:07 AM
pz, i'm one who finds reading engineering/math papers somewhat easier than reading molecular genetics papers... though don't get me wrong, hardcore math papers can get ugly real fast too. for me, it's all those damn acronymns used in molecular biology -- can't you guys settle on an accepted nomenclature yet? i mean for crying out loud, when someone reads up on, say, Shh, he should not have to look up the link to some little blue guy on sega systems, and then remember how that is related to the function of Shh in biological systems. and those pathways that when fully drawn out look like tangled spaghetti... wtf

#50053: — 11/21  at  11:18 AM
Ken,

The Bruce Salem hypothesis: An education in the engineering disciplines forms a predisposition to Intelligent Design viewpoints, linking the "Design" mindset of engineers to a belief that humanity itself was also designed.

I always thought that it is otherwise. Those with "Design" mindsets are attracted to engineering, because it is so true and beautiful.

#50054: Rick @ shrimp and grits — 11/21  at  11:20 AM

for me, it's all those damn acronymns used in molecular biology -- can't you guys settle on an accepted nomenclature yet?

That makes me think of my first biochemistry class. Took me half a semester to figure out what the heck the professor was actually talking about. THEN it was simple - actually easier than my organic chem classes were.

#50056: — 11/21  at  11:25 AM
S. J. Gould said that paleontologists should learn more biology. Rudolf Raff says that biologists should learn more paleontology. Now we all have to learn fluid mechanics?!? Jeezo-peezo, does it never end?

Ever more evidence that everything intertwingles...

#50059: Bill Tozier — 11/21  at  11:28 AM
As a biologist who's in engineering now, I guess I'm an outlier. Actually, I started of as one, since I entered biology back in the day to do Synthetic Biology... but it didn't exist back then. So I ended up just a plain old vanilla molecular biologist, with an impatient attitude and an annoying pissy attitude towards the then-prevalent spirit of passive model-laden empiricism.

I recently sat in on a Synthetic Biology course here at U-M, and there were about equal numbers of engineers and biologists in the audience. Turns out the cultures were unable to talk to each other; it was very frustrating to sit there and listen to (admittedly grad student) bio lecturers elide the details of the lac operon, leaving the engineers in the dust, and then have the engineers stand up and lecture on design patterns and abstract switching networks, leaving the classical biologists in the dust. Frustrating because everybody needed to take twice the time, and they didn't.

Might this readability thing be taken as an explicit case for the difference between technical papers and popularizations of them? In a technical paper, you're not supposed to explain it to your mother.

That said, it still pisses me off when I sit in a seminar in our department, and the speaker presumes we're all up to speed on her little sub-sub-domain.

#50061: Rick @ shrimp and grits — 11/21  at  11:42 AM

Now we all have to learn fluid mechanics?!? Jeezo-peezo, does it never end?

It never ends. You've got to learn thermodynamics, too. Otherwise, you'll never be able to counter all those creationist first and second law arguments.

Just get your chemical engineering degree and be done with it.

#50063: Phi — 11/21  at  11:56 AM
And, as always, the devil is in the details. I can usually follow things as long as they stay at the conceptual level, but once you hit any of (a) formal notation, (b) loads of technical terms, or (c) equations that you're not familiar with, the weather gets heavy. Thus I love reading books by people like Dawkins (I'm currently swimming through Ancestor's tale): He gives me the kind of conceptual information that I find so useful in thinking about my own research in Evolutionary Computation (Ancestor's has suggested several interesting new directions), and suggests places where I probably want to get more detailed information (complete with pointers to where I might find it).

Obviously, though, science is ultimately about the details as well as the concepts. It's all well and good to know that gravity pulls objects towards each other, but you don't get to the moon with that level of understanding. I can happily gloss over a lot of the details of molecular biology in my work, but it's pretty darn important that someone knows those details.

I think one of the huge challenges that face us (as scientists and as academics) is helping people (including other scientists!) understand the concepts in our fields, and the research literature is typically a terrible vehicle for that due to things like page limits and the politics of reviewing and publishing. This, combined with the fact that there's little credit given for this sort of outreach in things like the tenure process at most institutions, means that it's pretty tough to wade into most people's fields and make sense of what's happening.

And, sadly, this just encourages people like the Discovery Institute to capitalize on the sense of science and scientists as elite, remote, and imcomprehensible.

#50064: — 11/21  at  11:57 AM
Just as an aside, I love the term 'jet orifice'.

(Seems to me that phrase should be used for something...)


A band would be the obvious choice.

As for papers, I tend to have the most difficulty with stuff in molecular biology and genetics.

#50066: — 11/21  at  12:14 PM
When reading science, whenever someone jumps into technical terms I usually get lost. And even though I'm in math whenever I see loads of equations being used my mind tends to automatically try to "skim" through the equations and not pay them much attention. It's just annoying to have to constantly exert the mental effort needed to translate the equations into what they mean in english.

#50070: ekzept — 11/21  at  12:31 PM
well, there is this nice précis of the Anderson-Grosenbaugh paper.

#50072: decrepitoldfool — 11/21  at  12:40 PM
Someone is suppressing the Truth here. The real reason you can't handle fluid mechanics, PZ, has nothing to do with mathematics. Your problem is that you're a man.

#50078: senoritafish — 11/21  at  01:28 PM
Axiom - Lm is "squid mantle length" - there's a list of symbols at the end of the paper. So they are more efficient, the faster they're swimming - am I reading that right?

Unfortunately, when I start seeing lots of equations in a paper, I will try to muddle through it for awhile and then I usually skip to the discussion. I think a high schooler called me once and asked the swimming speed of a Pacific mackerel, which led me to quite a few articles with similar terminology (and why do they call me instead of going to the library?! Oh well, I learned something myself, so all is good).

#50090: Axiom — 11/21  at  02:43 PM
senoritafish, thanks for the pointer. I also saw the definition of Lm. I was trying to illustrate my reading style while fighting to get a complete thought typed-out before a caffeine-induced context switch popped this all out of my short-term memory.

I'll admit that my frenetic writing / thought process sometimes limits my ability to express thoughts more complex than "Computers GOOD!"

My point was supposed to be that the study skills that we learned in college really do apply in real life: work the problem from both ends (from abstract and from conclusion), if you get stuck on a problem (or equation) move on to the next one, don't be afraid to ask sensible questions, etc.

From my casual reading, the efficiency factor is a conversion from potential energy to mechanical energy to kinetic energy. In short, they're getting the most squirt for the least effort. That's a pretty impressive result for a critter that EVOLVED NATURALLY.

I mean, seriously, if the thing were designed, wouldn't said designer change its taste? It's not sufficient to make the animal fast if you also make it delicious. That just means that I'll expend more calories chasing them down, allowing me to eat more.

Victory: Axiom!

#50104: — 11/21  at  04:13 PM
Nifty piece!

To respond to your query:
Do other people out there get as lost in the molecular genetics/developmental biology literature as I do in the hydrodynamics literature? Papers that describe genes and epigenetics and embryological processes all seem so simple to me, compared to papers outside my specialty.

So, yeah, I think engineers are smart people. I think we need some engineer with a cephalopod fetish to start blogging.

Well, fwiw, as a (Chemical) Engineer, I can say - yes, developmental and molecular biology makes my head hurt, along with quantum anything.

So don't feel bad, that's why the days of the truly encyclopedic generalist are fairly much done, alas.

#50109: Geoffrey Brent — 11/21  at  04:45 PM
My degree says I'm an engineer, and I love cephalopods, but sadly the two interests don't meet - fluid dynamics is not my strong point. I will, however, recommend Molluscious as a good source of pretty cephalopods, if light on science. (As I write, the most recent post there points back at this article...)

#50128: John Wilkins — 11/21  at  06:17 PM
It never ends. You've got to learn thermodynamics, too. Otherwise, you'll never be able to counter all those creationist first and second law arguments.

There's abook for biologists on just this topic:

Donald T. Hayne, Biological Theormodynamics, Cambridge University Press, 2001

I lost the discussion about page 32...