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The subject seems pretty interesting, but the article itself had a few disappointments. Decades ago I thought for sure by now we would be harnessing the DNA to
by johnea 2y ago
The subject seems pretty interesting, but the article itself had a few disappointments.
Decades ago I thought for sure by now we would be harnessing the DNA to express chitin and strands of cellulose into structural forms to start replacing the ubiquitous poison petrochemical plastics that we're still dumping in massive amounts into toxic waste dumps around the world.
We're still not there yet 8-/ So the subject at least offers some advance in understanding biological processes.
But the biggest disappointment of the article was in the author's emphasis of the importance of the name of the thing.
While the name might have a big effect in the intensity of the "neato" response in a lay audience. I seriously doubt it would have much effect at all on specialists in the field. They're gonna follow the results, not the names.
Then the author doubles down at the end with a nice little bible story about the big invisible swinging dick in outer space, and how HE got Adam to name the animals.
Is the author seriously advocating this prehistoric creation myth? If so, that's pathetic.
As for my own advocacy, I've always taken the opposite position regarding what happens when we apply a name. I always told my son when he was a small child, and learning a lot of words, that once we learn a name for a thing, it becomes invisible to us.
As soon as our brain can identify something that we know a name for, we instantly slap that label on the thing and we never see another detail of it's actual existence. That kind of covering up endless layers of detail is essential to prevent being bogged down in the real world, but it's also a major inhibitor to getting over stereotypes and uncovering new facts.
- neom 2y agoThe author isn't advocating for creationism from my read. They're using the story as a metaphor for humanity's role in understanding and categorizing new phenomena. It's a literary device, not a theological statement. The fact that labels can blind us to deeper details is actually quite good, and I would say not necessarily in conflict with the article's point.... doesn't this aligns with the article's argument about how different frameworks can either reveal or obscure different aspects of realitis?
- mindcrime 2y agoAs soon as our brain can identify something that we know a name for, we instantly slap that label on the thing and we never see another detail of it's actual existence. That kind of covering up endless layers of detail is essential to prevent being bogged down in the real world, but it's also a major inhibitor to getting over stereotypes and uncovering new facts. Yeah, that strikes me as one of those fundamental conundrums that crops up sometimes. A little bit like the exploration/exploitation tradeoff or something. Naming things is "bad" in that it hides the details and ends the need to pay attention to those details and sort of locks the concept in a stasis a bit. But OTOH, naming thing is "good" exactly because it hides the details and allows us to use the concept more freely. The whole "design patterns" notion in software development seems to encapsulate this idea.