Researchers keep identifying new species, but they have no idea about the life cycle of a given species or its other hosts. They cut open an animal and find a new species. Where did it come from? What effect does it have on its host? What is its next host? They don't know and they don't have time to find out, because there are too many other species waiting to be discovered and described.
Interpretation
Scientists often discover new species without fully understanding their biology or ecological roles.
This quote by Carl Zimmer highlights the challenges faced by researchers in the field of biology, particularly in the area of taxonomy and ecology. It emphasizes the rapid pace at which new species are being identified, yet points out the lack of understanding regarding their life cycles and interactions with other organisms. The urgency of discovery often overshadows the necessity of in-depth study, leading to gaps in knowledge about newly found species and their ecological significance.
In practice
In a biology conference, one might use this quote to stress the importance of understanding ecological interactions.
At long last, we may be returning to the original two-sided sense of the word virus, which originally signified either a life-giving substance or a deadly venom. Viruses are indeed exquisitely deadly, but they have provided the world with some of its most important innovations. Creation and destruction join together once more.
Given for one instant an intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective positions of the beings which compose it, if moreover this intelligence were vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in the same formula both the movements of the largest bodies in the universe and those of the lightest atom; to it nothing would be uncertain, and the future as the past would be present to its eye.
Science has helped us to understand and master ourselves, creating an elevated new form of human life, the wealth and beauty of which cannot be pictured today by the keenest imagination.
I believe that science is the engine of prosperity, that if you look around at the wealth of civilization today, it's the wealth that comes from science.
A very great deal more truth can become known than can be proven.
I'm proud of the fact that I thought of the solar wind. It was an exercise in pursuing curiosity, which is the main motivation for studying physics from a personal standpoint.
It is in our genes to understand the universe if we can, to keep trying even if we cannot, and to be enchanted by the act of learning all the way.
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