Hate mail for like-minded conservationists

OKAY.... my :twocents: :

I'm behind you Steve. The fact that these people are even THINKING that you're some kind of "Steve-O the Squid Slayer" is both misguided and stupid.

Ignore them... Truth is, you will never be able to please everyone all the time, and to be honest, the mass media will tend to sensationalize everything no matter what you do. Biologists are not killers. People who study the natural world are unfortunately beset upon by all sides by those who don't understand science, nor understand how painful it is to watch those lifeforms you care for so much be torn to pieces by forces both natural and unnatural. You didn't kill the squid. And that squid's sacrifice may go a helluva long way more towards protecting it than sitting in some lab looking at sonar images. Personally, I envy you.

I stand by what I've said before; people only care about what they can truly experience. This "Messie" is something the whole world should know about. Its every bit as beautiful as it is frightening. Its the unknown... its what fuels the heart of any real scientist.

Hate mail be damned...

Anyway, I should go start working on my own "Squiddies" (Those who have seen "The Matrix" know of what I speak :twisted: )

Peace and Ika, Sushi and Sake,

John
 
kaharoa_spy said:
Giant = unusually large
Colossal = enormous
Enormous = Very large

....would that be you R?

My dictionary defines them as:
Giant = remarkably or supernaturally large (I must have a bigger dictionary than you)
Colossal = of immense size; huge, gigantic
Enormous = unusually large in size; immense or vast

Immense = unusually large; huge, large; vast; without limits; immeasurable

We could go in circles here .... :roll:

So, as colossal has more letters I hereby decree it to be larger than plain-old giant. Moreover, colossal means gigantic even, and this has to be several orders of magnitude gianter than giant, in addition to being both immense and immeasurable.

....problem is 'supernaturally large' sounds pretty big also.
 
Science doesn't kill... People kill.

I'm not against science but I think sometimes we need to examine and question the scientific research. Science must be balanced with social responsibility. Albert Einstein said that if he knew that his work in nuclear physics would lead to the invention of the nuclear bomb, he never would have studied physics!

"Hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones." — George Bernard Shaw
 
Steve - supernaturally large sounds kind of cool, but this isnt a phantom squid... (maybe archi could qualify for that) in one of my dictionaries, the first couple definitions deal with the people of fiction/fairy tales who were of great size, maybe thats where the supernatural comes from....

Architeuthoceras - i always kind of liked that progression...as long as someone doesnt jump the gun and go from super to hyper.....

shf2 - why cripple science by throwing social responsibility in? obviously, prudence is needed, whats the point in killing a lot of animals to learn about them if your studying significantly impacts them...(either in # or in the populations behavior) plus societies are constantly changing, bending certain rules, throwing out others.... id rather have scientists get answers and need help dealing with people than being socially conscious and accomplishing little if anything....
 
SHF2:

I'm sure Einstein's comment about the destructive potential of applied physics and his "complicity" in the endeavour was sincere; on the other hand, he readily assented to Leo Szilard's request that he use his influence to warn FDR of the very real threat posed by the Third Reich's own pursuit of fissile munitions. Ultimately, Eisntein, Szilard and (especially) Niels Bohr embraced the idea of complementarity: science, embodied in the Bomb, provided the means by which nations and individuals might destroy one another, but also yielded a deeper understanding of the inter-relatedness and mutual dependency of things. The "stuff" of nuclear weapons is also the stuff of life.

Perhaps the ideal of "social responsibility" should be junked as a goal. After all, whose society is really at issue? Seems to me that social responsibility is just a slightly more palatable term for an agenda that is still, at its root, deeply anthropocentric: preservation for our sake.

WhiteKiboko: A case can be made for imposing a few societal constraints every now and then, if only to encourage the development of approaches and techniques that do not require the exploitation of extant organisms. On one level, the current leaps being made in the medical applications of genetic research and computer modeling have been driven by the social injunction against experimentation on living human beings, giving science the means to observe and predict the actions of living systems without destroying them. Far from "crippling" science, the injunction against human experimentation has bred ingenious approaches leading to profound changes in both theoretical and applied science, with not a little social introspection emerging as a happy by-product. Sometimes, a little "no" leads to a big "yes."

SHF2: Thanks for starting this valuable conversation.

Clem
 
Humungous Squid? Nuh - not at all appetising.

Prodigious Squid - has a certain ring to it.

MEGASQUID -now we are talking!!!

Who said yours is bigger than mine? My Websters is about 5" thick.

I'll have to delve deeper into this matter.


R. :smile:
 
SHF2,

You hit the nail right on the head. Most people have a complete misunderstanding of what science is, i.e., they consider it as either good or evil. Science is a systematic search for empirical knowledge, and therefore has no inherent ethics. That's both a strength and a weakness depending on how you want to deal with it from a philosophical standpoint. Science can show us how to build a nuclear weapon; ethics will determine whether or not we use it.

In the end, its all about personal responsibility and ethical and moral views. In the end, we choose the path.

Sushi and Sake,

John
 
Thought it be yee R! Welcome to TONMO :biggrin2:

Mine is the Collins Dictionary and Thesaurus (in one volume even). It's only 7cm thick, but it's in real tiny print (it's not the same as the other picture books they have on Kaharoa)! I think it's better than yours :madsci:

There seem to be several debates happening around us right now - we're sandwiched. Have you just been off northernmost NZ doing the seamount voyage?

Cheers ears ....

Sorry everyone else, I'll get back to my original post soon. Am ever-so-slightly losing the plot at this end.
O
 
UBER-Squid sounds a bit grave for this purpose.

Seeing as these things seem to hang around New Zeland waters (at least soome of the time) how about "wheke whakaharahara"

Excuse me if this is a bit of a heath robinson translation but my Williams Maori dictionary is only about 1" thick!!



The Spy!
 
Bald Evil said:
I would also pay to see a shark fight a gorilla.

the gorilla wouldnt stand a chance....unless it was Grape Ape (from the cartoon) as for the uber issue, shouldnt it normally have the dots (cant remeber the name, and yes i know they a pain to pull up)

prodigous squid does have a nice ring to it, but then again so does KibokoSquid... :smile:
 

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