Long life to Applied Science
This week started good for what science matters. A former friend of me, for example, got a paper in Nature, which, as you might know, is one of the two most important journals in the world. It doesn't really matters what I think now of the person (nothing nice, actually), neither matters that I have tried unsuccessfully (already years ago) to get my science published in Nature (so I am actually bursting with envy). That was good news, since shows that even people that was like one long time ago, has a chance of being recognized scientists. Cool. My former friend is a venezuelan chap (we made together our undergraduate studies in biology in a venezuelan university), and his paper was published in collaboration with other latin american scientists. A point for the third world! yupi!!
But the scoring from my former university did not stop there. Few days later I was informed (casually by another Nature author) that research from my old venezuelan university was being recognized (again). Indeed, I got a link to a BBC news, in which a discovery from my former professors was nicely covered: Flatulence-free beans. It seems that researchers from the nutrition department used some interesting knowledge on bacteria to produce a strain of beans that liberates the consumer from that undesired side effect. What can I say? Are we not happy?
Interestingly enough, I remember years ago a raging discussion among few professors of that same nutrition department and others from the ethology group. The discussion was on applied science. The claim of the ethologists was that science is science, and the applied tag makes no sense whatsoever. Accordingly, the research of a scientist is always better evaluated by international scientists. Contrarily, came the opinion of the nutrition people. In a third world university the priority should not lay in getting internationally recognized research. Rather the production of knowledge that could be used in alleviating the social conditions of our impoverished countries. Applied science? welcome to you!
Well, in the light of the BBC report I wonder what this debate would be today. Would the ethologists recognize the value of the research, given the attention that the international community gave to it? Are the nutritionists convinced that they solved one of the problems of our poor population (that surely consumes lots of beans)?
And talking about socially relevant research, I can not but end this column reporting an article on The Guardian of today. The New Scientist (a popular science publication) compiled worldwide scientific research on the causes of couple attraction. Now, that seems indeed worth the grants. Imagine that scientists could teach us how to pick the woman (or man) of our dreams. I would like to apply that! (if I would not be happily married, I mean). Alas, once more the scientists disappoint me. The list can not be a more banal compilation of common knowledge. Chocolate is good, body language matters, eye contact is desirable, shared experiences of danger bond people together, soft music make persons more receptive to each other, and laughing together is good for a couple. Now, thank you very much. I really could not have think of those. Well, who knows?. Perhaps this list was not known by the scientists that carried the research. Let's hope that the readers of the New Scientists, then, count now with an easy recipe of improving their human relations. With all due respect to my scientist friends (most of them in couples made in field trips, a shared danger indeed) I can testify that in academy, any improvement in human relations is welcome.
But the scoring from my former university did not stop there. Few days later I was informed (casually by another Nature author) that research from my old venezuelan university was being recognized (again). Indeed, I got a link to a BBC news, in which a discovery from my former professors was nicely covered: Flatulence-free beans. It seems that researchers from the nutrition department used some interesting knowledge on bacteria to produce a strain of beans that liberates the consumer from that undesired side effect. What can I say? Are we not happy?
Interestingly enough, I remember years ago a raging discussion among few professors of that same nutrition department and others from the ethology group. The discussion was on applied science. The claim of the ethologists was that science is science, and the applied tag makes no sense whatsoever. Accordingly, the research of a scientist is always better evaluated by international scientists. Contrarily, came the opinion of the nutrition people. In a third world university the priority should not lay in getting internationally recognized research. Rather the production of knowledge that could be used in alleviating the social conditions of our impoverished countries. Applied science? welcome to you!
Well, in the light of the BBC report I wonder what this debate would be today. Would the ethologists recognize the value of the research, given the attention that the international community gave to it? Are the nutritionists convinced that they solved one of the problems of our poor population (that surely consumes lots of beans)?
And talking about socially relevant research, I can not but end this column reporting an article on The Guardian of today. The New Scientist (a popular science publication) compiled worldwide scientific research on the causes of couple attraction. Now, that seems indeed worth the grants. Imagine that scientists could teach us how to pick the woman (or man) of our dreams. I would like to apply that! (if I would not be happily married, I mean). Alas, once more the scientists disappoint me. The list can not be a more banal compilation of common knowledge. Chocolate is good, body language matters, eye contact is desirable, shared experiences of danger bond people together, soft music make persons more receptive to each other, and laughing together is good for a couple. Now, thank you very much. I really could not have think of those. Well, who knows?. Perhaps this list was not known by the scientists that carried the research. Let's hope that the readers of the New Scientists, then, count now with an easy recipe of improving their human relations. With all due respect to my scientist friends (most of them in couples made in field trips, a shared danger indeed) I can testify that in academy, any improvement in human relations is welcome.
posted by Unknown at 1:53 PM
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