Neanderpundit

Part one was back here. And the discussion continues, not so much to prove a point but to clarify the way I think about Science for the people who give a shit. Everyone else, go see what is going on at Scrappleface.

Wikipedia separates science in ways that I can’t make sense of, and here’s why:

At the basis of all science (root word, “scientia” from the latin, meaning “Knowledge”) is mathematics. No, I’m not stating this as fact, I’m explaining the way I understand. I understand it this way because you have to use math (in which I include calculus, trig, geometry, logic, and etc) to quantify, qualify, and describe everything else.

I think of Chemistry as a “Pure” science because everything in chemistry can be qualified, quantified, and described using mathematics and the properties that are unique to the chemicals and chemical compounds involved.

I think of physics the same way. There are places where chemistry and physics overlap.
I think of Optics is the same way. There are places where optics and physics overlap.
Then each gets divided into smaller and smaller pieces, relating to narrower and narrower disciplines, until the specialization is almost fractal in it’s complexity.

Pretty much all of the other disciplines have to do with those. I look at the “hard” sciences as tools with which all the other sciences are explored.

Biology, which has always been lumped in with the others, doesn’t seem to me to be able to be described as a “pure” science, because it is really a combination of other, more “pure” sciences. All of the processes in an organism can be described in terms, for instance, of chemical reactions. What about “Bilogy” is pure? What about ‘biology” can be described outside of chemistry, physics, optics, mathematics, etc?

Additionally, though the chemical reactions in an organism are predictable and repeatable, the way an organism reacts to external stimuli do not always follow patterns- at least not patterns we understand, at present. the same organism can have practically unlimited tolerance for one substance at one point in it’s development and the same substance can be toxic at a later stage. This is not just true in the case of illness (diabetes) but it can be culturally significant as well; many Japanese nurse drinking mother’s milk but are allergic or at least lactose intolerant as adults- until; very recently, Japanese cheese did not exist, they did not drink milk or use dairy as adults, as a general rule. (ice cream being the notable exception-even that is relatively recent as the Japanese are concerned; and I’m still not convinced you can even call “Fish” or “Sweet potato” or “Eeel” flavored crap to be ice cream.)

Where was i? Oh, yes. Biology is really just a way of studying all the ways that chemistry and physics and optics and other stuff can come together to make organisms. Look at humans and lobsters. We are made using the same patterning material, dna. And a lobster has a physical structure and a biochemistry so far from humans as to make us seem as though we’re not even from the same planet- Lobster blood is green because it’s composed of hemocyanin, and uses the oxide of copper to move oxygen around the animal. Humans-all earth mammals, in fact- do it with hemoglobin, which uses the oxide of iron to move oxygen around our bodies.

And there is nothing that can’t be described about any of it using the “hard sciences”.

All of this can be extrapolated to all of the other disciplines. Astronomy. geophysics. Marine biology. Endocrinology.

This is not a set of rules- not, anyway, for anyone but me. This odd little taxonomy helps me, personally, to understand the natural world, and it makes it easier for me to keep all the pieces in order. It also, in my mind, solidifies the relationship more clearly between the disciplines.

This is not something I was taught or I spent a great deal of time thinking about, I must confess, until now. And now that I’ve typed it out, I realize, though it’s crude, and there may be some exception that I don’t know about, I think most of the pieces fit particularly well. And every situation I can think about fits into this loose framework.

In the old snapcap thread,Tam posited that she had a liklihood of losing a firing pin due to failure to use a gun condom snap cap similar to her liklihood of getting struck by lightning. This is risible on it’s surface; because of the unpredictability of lightning it is impossible to protect against it except by staying in an area where lightning will never strike, i.e., in a gun safe or faraday cage. Snap caps don’t restrict any activity (like living in a faraday cage would) and do not change the function of the firearm in any way. Enough, this isn’t what this post is about!

This post is about being hit by lightning. I have not yet been hit, but I expect to be hit, some day. Seven members of my family have been hit, and several co-workers. Most of these have been indirect hits- my sister was hit while talking on the phone, through the phone. My father was hit by a branch of lightning off a tree that was hit. Both grandfathers had been hit directly. An uncle and a few others hit indirectly. A co-worker got shocked grabbing the door handle of his car while the building he was parked next to was hit, not fifty yards from where I sit right now.

All of the people in my family who have been hit by lightning cannot wear a watch, either due to oils on their skin damaging the watch, or the watch becoming magnetized while wearing it. I’m of the “magnetized’ variety- in fact the only watch I’ve ever been able to wear are the all-stainless Swiss variety. We all regularly notice streetlights going out around us, not once in a while but every single time we are in a car, at least one streetlight will burn out as we drive under. This has been happening to me for years.

So whatever the cause, I expect to be hit by lightning eventually. And I can only hope it’s one of the indirect hits; the direct ones are often fatal. I don’t want to end up a permanent fixture of God’s own presto hot Dogger. I’ve been shocked many times (“Electrocuted” means killed, I haven’t managed that yet) invariably because of a Stupid Previous Owner Trick on a house or a machine, so I know what to expect on a small scale, and I’m not anxious to repeat on a large scale.

Still.

I love a rainstorm, the more sturm and drang the better, and I love to see lightning hit close by. I know others in my family have the same fascination and attraction. Wonder if there’s a causality there.

Apparently it’s only the day shift that can’t run an ROV, the guys on nights were brilliant. I was watching the whole deal go down last night, and it was amazigly impressive.