I am a Scientist

searching for a voice that resonates.
I would like to make myself clear.
speak clearly,
simply,
without bullshit.

it’s difficult when
what I have to say doesn’t make sense.
it is an indictment of sense,
of precision, perfection,
of often quoted rationality,
of straight lines ignorant of scatter.

Rock and roll anti-hero once sung,
“I am a scientist, I seek to understand...”
…and I do.
I seek to understand what prevents understanding.
Am I a shitty scientist?
Am I a saboteur?
I am a wanna-be gadfly
and, most of all, a humble human being.

yes I admit,
I am most interested in what eludes description.
in life,
in surprise,
in Mistakes (why not just love them?).
Evolution may be Intelligent after all.

dark late night,
on the verge of a great discovery,
eyes in a microscope,
and mooned by a cyanobacteria!
the little (lovely) bare-assed bastard.
I smile and go to bed.

coyote is the metaphor that sticks (owww!).
thank you Donna Haraway.
provocation may be the only way (oh that blue-green bum!).
thank you David Hume.

what is my role?
perhaps it’s to simply
spread the word.
reality is time-dependent.
space-dependent.
knowledge at time = t
is sometimes shit
at time = t + 1 two southern states away.

so, stress the local,
cut out the middle man!
Rock and roll anti-hero once sung,
“You don’t need a weatherman
to know which way the wind blows.”
Suddenly,
it all became incredibly clear.
conversation,
adaptation,
science =
another lost art.

we are all scientists.

bombs & food webs

Interesting facts:

REDUCE, ATOMIZE, SEVER

The Atomic Bomb:
• First tested @ the Trinity Site on July 16, 1945 near Alamorgordo, New Mexico. Called “The Gadget.”
• Hiroshima – August 6, 1945
• Nagasaki – August 9, 1945



INTEGRATE, INTERCONNECT, WEAVE

The Food Web:
• Earliest example in Western science comes from Victor Summerhayes and Charles Elton in 1923.
• The word “ecosystem” is coined in 1935.
• The first quantitative study of energy flow through an ecosystem is published in 1942 in the journal Ecology: “The trophic-dynamic aspect of ecology” by Raymond Lindeman



So, only 10 years divide the date by which descendants of European origin: (1) acquired the capacity to destroy human civilization by splitting (what was then thought to be) the smallest building block of matter and (2) developed a term to refer to a “biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.”

:::turn:::



CAPITALISM: preference to the individual, competition, separation
COMMUNISM: preference to the community, submission, binding

“Capitalism and communism are simply the opposite sides of the same eurocentric coin. What the world needs is not a choice between capitalism and communism, between one aspect of eurocentrism or eurosupremacism and another. What we need is a genuine alternative to the European tradition as a whole.” – Russel Means, the Lakota people

:::breath:::

Lots of ideas, maybe too many! Simplify.

Arthur Magazine: What’s your idea of an important achievement?
Brian Eno: Years ago my assistant bought a chair for a thousand pounds at a fishing lake owned by 300 fishermen, and nearly every weekend he goes there and basically meditates with a fishing rod in his hand—that’s what people are really doing when they fish.

:::smile:::

Porch.
Relax.

PHB-bacteria

photo by mike