TMI! TMI! Science in the Information Age

Douglas Hine wrote a great article on Aeon: What is Information? Where he talks about how we use the internet compared to the promise and potential of the internet. "The internet promised to feed our minds with knowledge. What have we learned? That our minds need more than that."

I found that clarifier misleading. Our minds may not need more than that, but for information to be valuable, our minds have to be able to do something with that information--put it into context, understand it, synthesize that into other knowledge we have and see how it relates. Hine does go on to discuss all that in the article, so read the whole thing--he makes a lot of great points that will get you thinking.

And that, my friends, is the big difference between having access to information and having knowledge.

At the CZ 99 Conference, the keynote speaker talked about how much better/easier things would be in the future for those of us working in natural resource management because of the Web, where everyone would have access to the same information. He spoke of our next big challenge being getting all the available information out to everyone by using this resource, so that better decision could be made! How exciting.

I turned to the person next to me and said something to the effect of, "That's ridiculous. Information isn't knowledge. The next big challenge is going to be differentiating valuable and correct information from garbage. Most people can't. The real challenge is going to be overcoming all the misinformation that will spread." She looked at me like I was nuts and I wondered if I was being too pessimistic.

I'm not making any claims to being prophetic here. Honestly, at the time, I hoped I was just being pessimistic. Yet, all we have to do is look to the discussion of climate science--and the fact we're having a discussion instead of doing something about it?!--to see I was on to something. Even more than I feared. Consider, more people understood and "believed" the science of climate change and global warming in the pre-internet 80s than in the 00s. It has been studied since the 1800s, with a lot of focus and progress through the 50s and 60, so scientists had a pretty good, but not great handle on it back then. They knew it would be big, if we didn't change our dependence on fossil fuels. They were confident we'd have better, cleaner technology before it became a problem. Little did they know the influence oil and gas lobbies would have on our ability to make any meaningful progress in that direction.

The information that was generated back in the 50s and 60s was analyzed and critiqued through the peer-review process, found to be robust and accurate, and then moved into the public realm through popular media--National Geographic, Scientific American, and then on into public policy discussions. By the end of the 1950s the consequences of CO₂ release were clear enough for policy makers to take note. In 1965 President Johnson told the nation "[t]his generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through ... a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels." In 1969 Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was warning of a dangerous sea-level rise of 10 feet or more. "Goodbye New York" he said. "Goodbye Washington." (NPR, 2014.)

"...climate science and climate change are older than the atom bomb, older than the discovery of penicillin and the older than recognition of DNA. It's older than trans-Atlantic jet flights, digital computers and moon rockets. Climate science and its conclusions are now venerable, established science. To claim anything else is to rewrite history" (NPR, 2014.)

The evidence is overwhelming, the course we have to take (should have taken) is clear, but instead of moving forward, making progress, and at the rapid pace technology would allow us to, we've instead taken a step backward as a society, thanks largely to the information age being the success that it is.

"We're a nation of information illiterates."

As I, and a whole lot of people smarter than I am, saw coming fifteen years ago, our biggest challenge in managing the Earth's valuable and limited natural resources, in managing human health and well-being by ensuring the health of those resources isn't a lack of information, but a lack of knowledge. Too many people confuse information with knowledge, are happy to accept anything they find on the internet as "fact," never using any critical thinking to evaluate the legitimacy of that information, and never using any brain power to take the next step of analyzing it in the context of all other knowledge to make valid assessments about how it applies. We're a society of information-rich illiterates. (For a more in-depth look at the extent of that illiteracy, here's a great article at Open Education.)

Bloom's Taxonomy is a tool that explains how we learn and how we move from information to understanding, to real knowledge--with the ability to apply information appropriately in the correct situations to make valid decisions, then moving to fully understand the implications to other areas, not just the specific situation in which we've learned that information, and finally, the highest level of learning--being able to make valid assessments and evaluate new information and situations with that.

Bloom's Taxonomy

Our overwhelming access to unlimited, unfiltered information, and our indiscriminate use of the internet to get at it and spew it without thinking has led to us lopping off the top 5 layers of Bloom's pyramid. We've become complacent about learning--a society that thrives on information, but cares nothing about comprehending what that information means. Without that level of the pyramid, all the other layers crumble. We can't effectively apply information if we don't understand how and where it's appropriate to do so. We can't analyze bigger related concepts and link together the component parts--synthesize information--if we don't get what those building blocks of knowledge mean and how they relate to each other; we can't expand our use of these concepts and this information to other areas if we don't even understand it at it's simplest level, and without any of that, how do we ever evaluate the real significance of a problem so that we can then solve it?

"Maybe in the next incarnation of technological advancement, instead of being excited about a plethora of information, we'll focus on a plethora of learning and understanding...The Knowledge Age."

As the Information Age has played out so far, the answer to all those questions is, we don't. Is it any wonder I'm a curmudgeon?

Maybe in the next incarnation of technological advancement, instead of being excited about a plethora of information, we'll focus on a plethora of learning and understanding...The Knowledge Age. We can only hope.

RESOURCES
Krumme Family, 2012. Major Categories in the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Bloom, 1956). Available at: http://www.krummefamily.org/guides/bloom.html

NPR, 2014. The Forgotten History of Climate Change. Available at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/05/13/312128173/the-forgotten-history-of-climate-change-science

Open Education, 2009. In the Midst of the Information Age, Why Are We So Uninformed? Available at: http://www.openeducation.net/2009/03/15/in-the-midst-of-the-information-age-why-are-we-so-uninformed/

Climate Change: Are You Cool? (RUCOOL)

One of the most frequent arguments voiced by climate change deniers is, "there's no data that show that." I have to chuckle every time someone says that because what the rest of us hear is, "I'm too stupid to find the data." A plethora of data, analyzed and raw, is out there for you, me everyone, and anyone to examine.

Even better, much of that data has been made available in user-friendly formats. One of my favorite places to visit to see and play with the data is the Rutgers University Coastal Ocean Observing Lab, RUCOOL.

Sea Surface Termperature Data available at RUCOOL

For those who like to get right to the end result, check out COOL Research, where you can download the latest research reports.

If you want to know about the technology used to collect and analyze data, check out the COOL Technology page.

Want to get right to the sea surface temperature data to see it for yourself? You can do that here and here.

Climate change and rising seawater temperatures are complex topics and making sense of the data can be a challenge. Scientists have been studying climate change for over a century, and have spent a good deal of time learning about the chemistry, physics, biology, and geology that go into understanding the Earth, and a lot more time gathering and analyzing data on it. It is true that for as much as we know about the Earth, there's a whole lot we don't know. It's also true that just because we don't know everything doesn't mean that what we do know is wrong.

What we do know, without any doubt, is that the ocean is getting warmer, and at a faster rate than has happened in millennia. Why should that matter? Because the oceans continuously interact with the atmosphere, sea surface temperature has a profound effect on global climate. Increasing sea surface temperature can affect what species of plants, animals, and microbes are present in a location, threaten corals and other sensitive organisms, and change the frequency and intensity of harmful algal blooms HABs (discussed in my previous post).

Bleached coral due to increased water temperatures.
(Photo courtesy of NOAA Photo Library.)

Don't care about any of that? Consider those changes could reduce fish populations, including popular food species, leading to less (and more expensive) seafood, and job losses to the fishing industry.

Commercial fishing fleet, LI, NY.
(Photo courtesy of the NOAA Photo Library)

Don't care about any of that?  Increases in sea surface temperature mean more atmospheric water vapor over the oceans.  This water vapor feeds weather systems that produce rain and snow, meaning more frequent and more severe storm events. Changes in sea surface temperature can also shift storm tracks, potentially contributing to droughts in some areas.

Folly Beach, SC after Hurricane Hugo, 1989
(Photo courtesy of the NOAA Photo Library)

With any luck, climate change deniers and those on the fence will get their heads out of their asses before it's too late, stop listening to politicians who don't know anything except how to get re-elected, and start listening to scientists who have devoted their lives to understanding what's happening in the world around us--the one we live in. Even if it's already too late to reverse the trend, as many scientists believe, it isn't too late to start preparing for and mitigating against the future impacts.

For more information, data, and details on how scientists study global climate change, check out these sites.

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/oceans/sea-surface-temp.html

http://rucool.marine.rutgers.edu/

http://www.skepticalscience.com/

http://www.whrc.org/resources/primer_home.html

The Blobfish

Yesterday, The Ugly Animal Preservation Society voted the blob fish the ugliest animal in the world. In honor of the blobfish, I'm reposting this blog from a little over a year ago.

Today, the Smithsonian came up with a rebuttal, In Defense of the Blobfish. The article includes a picture of what the blobfish would look like if we saw it swimming, supported by the ocean's buoyancy. Be sure to take a look if you'd like to see the blobfish in its full and true glory!

From June 2012: My Tribute to the Blobfish

If you've seen "Men in Black 3" the animal in this picture should look familiar. It's a blobfish. Yes, there really is a fish that looks exactly like Jimmy Durante swimming around, or more accurately, floating around, in the ocean.

The blobfish only grows to about 12" in length. It lives 2,000-3,000 feet below the ocean surface in the waters south east of Australia. That's the same depth that fishermen have to go to catch lobster, crabs, and some of our other favorite seafood that we've fished out from shallower waters. The blobfish has no commercial value: it's inedible.

Blobby has no way to escape the fishing nets because, just like he(she?) looks, he's basically a glob of Jell-O. His body is buoyant and he floats in the water column at a depth of about 800m. He doesn't need muscles or oxygen to swim because he doesn't have to swim.

According to Dr. Callum Roberts, one of the world's most respected experts on marine conservation, the blobfish is in danger of becoming extinct because of overfishing: "The Australian and New Zealand deep trawling fishing fleets are some of the most active in the world so if you are a blobfish then it is not a good place to be."

It's sad that, to satisfy our demand for seafood, we're willing to eliminate animals that most people don't even know about. This isn't a case of "people are starving so we have to do this to feed them." These are high-end seafood products going to feed people who all ready have too much protein in their diets. It's even sadder to think, given the vast ocean, that we're unwilling to protect even small areas of it to ensure ocean resources are around for future generations.

Those grumbling loudest about "traditional values" might want to remember back to the day when saving was a prized value. People delayed gratification, foregoing something now for something better in the future. I hold little hope that the marine environment will improve in the future--not with a world population of 7 billion and growing--but maybe by saving some of it now, we can at least have something left for the future.

If you're worried about the blobfish, or any other animal we might be destroying with poor fishing practices, here are some things you can do:

• Before you order that lobster, crab, or other seafood item on the menu, find out where it's from. Only order, buy, eat sustainably harvested seafood. http://www.nrdc.org/oceans/seafoodguide/
• Eat lower on the food chain.
• Support the establishment and management of marine protected areas.
• Use birth control. (Seriously. Don't you think 7 billion people on the planet is a little ridiculous? You don't really need more than replacement children, i.e. 2 kids per couple?)

Sources:

Bathroom Reader Institute (2007). Uncle John's Under the Slimy Sea. Bathroom Readers' Press, Ashland, Oregon. 144 pp.

Hough, Andrew (2010). Blobfish: world's most 'miserable looking' marine animal facing extinction. The Telegraph. Available at: http://tinyurl.com/yju7o5b

Photo from The Telegraph.

Jellyfish Lovers' Paradise!

Thanks to a Facebook post by my friend Dave Jenkins from Down Under, I've discovered a dream destination for jellyfish lovers, like myself! Jellyfish Lake in Palau is a marine lake on the island of Eil Malk. The lake is connected to the ocean by fissures and tunnels through the limestone from reefs that built the island.

Photo from To-Travelling - visit their website for more on the
lake and other fun things to do and see in Palau.

Not only is Jellyfish Lake a cnidarian-lovers' dream, but a chemical oceanographers' fantasy playground, too! The lake is stratified into oxygenated and anoxic layers, the deeper layer, devoid of oxygen, is also a toxic pool of hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and phosphate due to a combination of conditions that prevent mixing of the two layers.

From Wikipedia

Wait! There's more! This is also a playground of fun discoveries for marine microbiologists: the first three meters of the anoxic zone is laden with bacteria, including at least one species of a purple photosynthetic sulfur bacterium. The bacterial population is so dense that this layer absorbs all sunlight so the anoxic layer below the bacterial plate is pitch dark, but transparent. Sadly, the hydrogen sulfide can be absorbed through a person's skin--and kill them--so you and I won't be able to dive down and see that for ourselves. SCUBA diving isn't allowed in the lake, only snorkeling, in an effort to keep tourists from dying.

Want to see what it looks like to swim through a lake filled with jellies? Click here to watch a YouTube video of the experience. While the video caption says these guys are non-stinging, that's not quite accurate. The golden jellies do sting, but their nematocysts have little effect on humans. We  hardly notice them unless you're allergic, in which case, you'll know they sting!

I've added yet another destination to my always-growing list of places to visit. Other people have bucket-lists of things to do before they die, my list is a travel itinerary. So many fabulous places left for me to explore. Finding one that is the ideal destination for a biogeochemistry loving island girl, well, that's the epitome of "must-see" places. Thanks for sharing, Dave!

For more on the lake and things to see and do in Palau, go to the Palau Visitor's Authority website here.

Sailing Lore and Legends: It's Unlucky to Kill a Porpoise. The story of Pelorus Jack

Sailing history is filled with superstition and lore. It's unlucky to start a cruise on: a Friday (the day Christ was crucified), the first Monday in April (the day Cain slew Abel), the second Monday in August (the day Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed), December 31 (the day Judas Iscariot hanged himself). Black travel bags are unlucky but black cats are good luck and bring sailors home from the sea. Women aboard a ship make the sea angry, but naked women can calm the seas.

My favorite sailing superstition is that porpoises swimming around a ship are a good sign, and it's unlucky to kill one.

Need proof of the veracity of this bit of superstition? Look no further than the story of Pelorus Jack in New Zealand. Jack was the first dolphin to ever be protected by law.

In 1888 a Risso dolphin--a species uncommon to New Zealand waters--came to the attention of sailors on the ship Brindle as they made their way from Wellington to Nelson and back. This trip required a traverse through a dangerous bit of water between NZ's North and South Islands, a narrow channel filled with rocks hiding just beneath the surface, currents of up to 8 knots, and the remains of hundreds of vessels that didn't make it through. Sailors aboard the Brindle spotted the dolphin ahead of them, but it wasn't playing in the ship's wake as they expected. It appeared to be leading them through the channel!

The dolphin met the ship at the mouth of the channel on their return trip, too, and guided them safely back to the harbor. The sailors aboard the Brindle named the dolphin Pelorus Jack.

For 24 years, Pelorus Jack met ships from the entrance of Pelorus Sound and led them to French Pass, then picked them up again as they came out of the pass on their return journey to lead them safely back to the harbor. He was so reliable that many captains refused to go forward until he appeared. Clearly, this dolphin brought luck to all the vessels he brought safely home from their voyage. His reputation and fame grew, and people came from around the world to see him, including Mark Twain!

But, sadly, people are people and it wasn't just those who were amazed and awed that flocked to see the dolphin that seemed intent on helping sailors. In 1904, a passenger aboard a ship named Penguin fired a shot at the dolphin. Jack swam away, leaving a trail of blood in the water. Thankfully, he survived and reappeared two weeks later and proved he was as smart as he seemed: he never again led the Penguin through the channel.

Public outcry over the shooting incident led to passage of a law protecting Pelorus Jack and making it illegal to shoot a dolphin in New Zealand waters.

Pelorus Jack guided his last ship to the channel on April 12, 1912. He disappeared after that, probably dying of old age. New Zealand declared a day of national mourning to honor him, a candy bar was named after him, and songs have been written about this dolphin that brought luck to the sailors and led them safely home.

As the perfect post script to Pelorus Jack's story, five years after the passenger shot at the dolphin, the Penguin sank on the rocks in French Pass. It was the only ship lost in the channel during all the years Jack led ships through.

Closer to home, this past year, the South Carolina legislature refused to pass a law lowering the speed vessels can travel in the Charleston harbor--a law proposed because of an alarming increase in the number of fatal collisions between commercial ships and marine mammals. When a fourth-grade school class submitted a proposal to make the Atlantic bottlenose dolphin the state marine mammal, the legislature refused. One of our illustrious elected officials defended his vote against it by saying, "If we did that, we'd have to lower the vessel speed in the harbor to protect them, and that would be bad for commerce."

Maybe the SC legislature needs to hear about Pelorus Jack, the sailing superstition that it's bad luck to kill a porpoise, and the fate of the Penguin?


SOURCES:

The Bathroom Readers' Institute (2007). Uncle John's Under the Slimy Sea. Bathroom Readers' Press, Ashland, OR. 144 pp.

The Encyclopedia of New Zealand at http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/dolphins/5/2

Hendrickson, Robert (1984). The Ocean Almanac. Doubleday Books, New York, NY. 446 pp.


* Photo of Pelorus Jack downloaded from Wikipedia.com

Welcome to Waterblogged!

Welcome to Waterblogged! This is where I get to write about water, and anything and everything related to water. Bizarre sea creatures, great islands or coastal towns, watersports or events, and the marine environment: If it's water related---and everything is--I might write about it here! Pop in and see what's caught my fancy each week.