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.
The law of floatation was not discovered by contemplating the sinking of things, but by contemplating the floating of things which floated naturally, and then intelligently asking why they did so.
When, as we must often do, we fear science, we really fear ourselves.
To consult the statistician after an experiment is finished is often merely to ask him to conduct a post mortem examination. He can perhaps say what the experiment died of.
The time has come when scientific truth must cease to be the property of the few, when it must be woven into the common life of the world.
Physicists analyse systems. Web scientists, however, can create the systems.
The unreasonable efficiency of mathematics in science is a gift we neither understand nor deserve.
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