Showing posts with label LHC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LHC. Show all posts

Monday 27 August 2018

Hammer and chisel: the top ten reasons why fossil hunting is so important

At a time when the constantly evolving world of consumer digital technology seems to echo the mega-budget, cutting-edge experiments of the LHC and LIGO, is there still room for such an old-fashioned, low-tech science as paleontology?

The answer is of course yes, and while non-experts might see little difference between its practice today and that of its Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century pioneers, contemporary paleontology does on occasion utilise MRI scanners among other sophisticated equipment. I've previously discussed the delights of fossil hunting as an easy way to involve children in science, yet the apparent simplicity of its core techniques mask the key role that paleontology still plays in evolutionary biology.

Since the days of Watson and Crick molecular biology has progressed in leaps and bounds, yet the contemporary proliferation of cheap DNA-testing kits and television shows devoted to gene-derived genealogy obscure just how tentatively some of their results should be accepted. The levels of accuracy quoted in non-specialist media is often far greater than what can actually be attained. For example, the data on British populations has so far failed to separate those with Danish Viking ancestry from descendants of earlier Anglo-Saxon immigration, leading to population estimates at odds with the archaeological evidence.


Here then is a list of ten reasons why fossil hunting will always be a relevant branch of science, able to supply information that cannot be supplied by other scientific disciplines:
  1. Locations. Although genetic evidence can show the broad sweeps connecting extant (and occasionally, recently-extinct) species, the details of where animals, plants or fungi evolved, migrated to - and when - relies on fossil evidence.
  2. Absolute dating. While gene analysis can be used to obtain the dates of a last common ancestor shared by contemporary species, the results are provisional at best for when certain key groups or features evolved. Thanks to radiometric dating from some fossiliferous locales, paleontologists are able to fill in the gaps in fossil-filled strata that don't have radioactive mineralogy.
  3. Initial versus canonical. Today we think of land-living tetrapods (i.e. amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds) as having a maximum of five digits per limb. Although these are reduced in many species – as per horse's hooves – five is considered canonical. However, fossil evidence shows that early terrestrial vertebrates had up to eight digits on some or all of their limbs. We know genetic mutation adds extra digits, but this doesn't help reconstruct the polydactyly of ancestral species; only fossils provide confirmation.
  4. Extinct life. Without finding their fossils, we wouldn't know of even such long-lasting and multifarious groups as the dinosaurs: how could we guess about the existence of a parasaurolophus from looking at its closest extant cousins, such as penguins, pelicans or parrots? There are also many broken branches in the tree of life, with such large-scale dead-ends as the pre-Cambrian Ediacaran biota. These lost lifeforms teach us something about the nature of evolution yet leave no genetic evidence.
  5. Individual history. Genomes show the cellular state of an organism, but thanks to fossilised tooth wear, body wounds and stomach contents (including gastroliths) we have important insights into day-to-day events in the life of ancient animals. This has led to fairly detailed biographies of some creatures, prominent examples being Sue the T-Rex and Al the Allosaurus, their remains being comprehensive enough to identify various pathologies.
  6. Paleoecology. Coprolites (fossilised faeces), along with the casts of burrows, help build a detailed enviromental picture that zoology and molecular biology cannot provide. Sometimes the best source of vegetation data comes from coprolites containing plant matter, due to the differing circumstances of decomposition and mineralisation.
  7. External appearance. Thanks to likes of scanning electron microscopes, fossils of naturally mummified organisms or mineralised skin can offer details that are unlikely to be discovered by any other method. A good example that has emerged in the past two decades is the colour of feathered dinosaurs obtained from the shape of their melanosomes.
  8. Climate analysis. Geological investigation can provide ancient climate data but fossil evidence, such as the giant insects of the Carboniferous period, confirm the hypothesis. After all, dragonflies with seventy centimetre wingspans couldn't survive with today's level of atmospheric oxygen.
  9. Stratigraphy. Paleontology can help geologists trying to sequence an isolated section of folded stratigraphy that doesn't have radioactive mineralogy. By assessing the relative order of known fossil species, the laying down of the strata can be placed in the correct sequence.
  10. Evidence of evolution. Unlike the theories and complex equipment used in molecular biology, anyone without expert knowledge can visit fossils in museums or in situ. They offer a prominent resource as defence against religious fundamentalism, as their ubiquity makes them difficult to explain by alternative theories. The fact that species are never found in strata outside their era supports the scientific view of life's development rather than those found in religious texts (the Old Testament, for example, erroneously states that birds were created prior to all other land animals).
To date, no DNA has been found over about 800,000 years old. This means that many of the details of the history of life rely primarily on fossil evidence. It's therefore good to note that even in an age of high-tech science, the painstaking techniques of paleontology can shed light on biology in a way unobtainable by more recent examples of the scientific toolkit. Of course, the study is far from fool-proof: it is thought that only about ten percent of all species have ever come to light in fossil form, with the found examples heavily skewed in favour of shallow marine environments.

Nevertheless, paleontology is a discipline that constantly proves its immense value in expanding our knowledge of the past in a way no religious text could ever do. It may be easy to understand what fossils are, but they are assuredly worth their weight in gold: precious windows onto an unrecoverable past.

Tuesday 26 January 2016

Spreading the word: 10 reasons why science communication is so important

Although there have been science-promoting societies since the Renaissance, most of the dissemination of scientific ideas was played out at royal courts, religious foundations or for similarly elite audiences. Only since the Royal Institution lectures of the early 19th century and such leading lights as Michael Faraday and Sir Humphry Davy has there been any organised communication of the discipline to the general public.

Today, it would appear that there is a plethora - possibly even a glut - in the market. Amazon.com carries over 192,000 popular science books and over 4,000 science documentary DVD titles, so there's certainly plenty of choice! Things have dramatically improved since the middle of the last century, when according to the late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, there was essentially no publicly-available material about dinosaurs.

From the ubiquity of the latter (especially since the appearance of Steven Spielberg's originally 1993 Jurassic Park) it might appear that most science communication is aimed at children - and, dishearteningly, primarily at boys - but this really shouldn't be so. Just as anyone can take evening courses in everything from pottery to a foreign language, why shouldn't the public be encouraged to understand some of the most important current issues in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), at the same time hopefully picking up key methods of the discipline?

As Carl Sagan once said, the public are all too eager to accept the products of science, so why not the methods? It may not be important if most people don't know how to throw a clay pot on a wheel or understand why a Cubist painting looks as it does, but it certainly matters as to how massive amounts of public money are invested in a project and whether that research has far-reaching consequences.
Here then are the points I consider the most important as to why science should be popularised in the most accessible way - although without oversimplifying the material to the point of distortion:

1. Politicians and the associated bureaucracy need basic understanding of some STEM research, often at the cutting edge, in order to generate new policies. Yet as I have previously examined, few current politicians have a scientific background. If our elected leaders are to make informed decisions, they need to understand the science involved. It's obvious, but then if the summary material they are supplied with is incorrect or deliberately biased, the outcome may not be the most appropriate one. STEM isn't just small fry: in 2010 the nations with the ten highest research and development budgets had a combined spend of over US$1.2 trillion.

2. If public money is being used for certain projects, then taxpayers are only able to make valid disagreements as to how their money is spent if they understand the research (military R&D excepted of course, since this is usually too hush-hush for the rest of us poor folk to know about). In 1993 the US Government cancelled the Superconducting Super Collider particle accelerator as it was deemed good science but not affordable science. Much as I love the results coming out of the Large Hadron Collider, I do worry that the immense amount of funding (over US$13 billion spent by 2012) might be better used elsewhere on other high-technology projects with more immediate benefits. I've previously discussed both the highs and lows of nuclear fusion research, which surely has to be one of the most important areas in mega-budget research and development today?

3. Criminal law serves to protect the populace from the unscrupulous, but since the speed of scientific advances and technological change run way ahead of legislation, public knowledge of the issues could help prevent miscarriages of justice or at least wasting money. The USA population has spent over US$3 billion on homeopathy, despite a 1997 report by the President of the National Council Against Health Fraud that stated "Homeopathy is a fraud perpetrated on the public." Even a basic level of critical thinking might help in the good fight against baloney.

4. Understanding of current developments might lead to reliance as much on the head as the heart. For example, what are the practical versus moral implications for embryonic stem cell research (exceptionally potent with President Obama's State of the Union speech to cure cancer). Or what about the pioneering work in xenotransplantation: could the next few decades see the use of genetically-altered pig hearts to save humans, and if so would patients with strong religious convictions agree to such transplants?

5. The realisation that much popular journalism is sensationalist and has little connection to reality. The British tabloid press labelling of genetically-modified crops as 'Frankenstein foods' is typical of the nonsense that clouds complex and serious issues for the sake of high sales. Again, critical thinking might more easily differentiate biased rhetoric from 'neutral' facts.

6. Sometimes scientists can be paid to lie. Remember campaigns with scientific support from the last century that stated smoking tobacco is good for you or that lead in petrol is harmless? How about the DuPont Corporation refusing to stop CFC production, with the excuse that capitalist profit should outweigh environmental degradation and the resulting increase in skin cancer? Whistle-blowers have often been marginalised by industry-funded scientists (think of the initial reaction to Rachel Carson concerning DDT) so it's doubtful anything other than knowledge of the issues would penetrate the slick corporate smokescreen.

7. Knowing the boundaries of the scientific method - what science can and cannot tell us and what should be left to other areas of human activity - is key to understanding where the discipline should fit into society. I've already mentioned the moral implications and whether research can be justified due to the potential outcome, but conversely, are there habits and rituals, or just societal conditioning, that blinds us to what could be achieved with public lobbying to governments?

8. Nations may be enriched as a whole by cutting out nonsense and focusing on solutions for critical issues, for example by not having to waste time and money explaining that global warming and evolution by natural selection are successful working theories due to the mass of evidence. Notice how uncontroversial most astronomical and dinosaur-related popularisations are. Now compare to the evolution of our own species. Enough said!

9. Improving the public perspective of scientists themselves. A primary consensus still seems to promote the notion of lone geniuses, emotionally removed from the rest of society and frequently promoting their own goals above the general good. Apart from the obvious ways in which this conflicts with other points already stated, much research is undertaken by large, frequently multi-national teams; think Large Hadron Collider, of course. Such knowledge may aid removal of the juvenile Hollywood science hero (rarely a heroine) and increase support for the sustained efforts that require public substantial funding (nuclear fusion being a perfect example).

10. Reducing the parochialism, sectarianism and their associated conflict that if anything appears to be on the increase. It's a difficult issue and unlikely that it could be a key player but let's face it, any help here must be worth trying. Neil deGrasse Tyson's attitude is worth mentioning: our ideological differences seem untenable against a cosmic perspective. Naïve perhaps, but surely worth the effort?

Last year Bill Gates said: "In science, we're all kids. A good scientist is somebody who has redeveloped from scratch many times the chain of reasoning of how we know what we know, just to see where there are holes." The more the rest of us understand this, isn't there a chance we would notice the holes in other spheres of thought we currently consider unbending? This can only be a good thing, if we wish to survive our turbulent technological adolescence.