[HN Gopher] Scientists prefer studying pretty plants to dull ones
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Scientists prefer studying pretty plants to dull ones
Author : helsinkiandrew
Score : 60 points
Date : 2021-05-11 05:24 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| In other news, humans make pretty animals their pets, eat the
| ugly ones.
| gnulinux wrote:
| Not only that but I feed other animals to my pretty cat. He's a
| beautiful animal though...
| globular-toast wrote:
| They eat pretty ones too, like horses. Just not in America...
| munk-a wrote:
| The opener of the synopsis - that scientific interest is skewed
| toward charismatic organisms is one of the least interesting
| points I think you could raise - it is obviously true due to the
| fact that people are going to study things that interests them.
| If a plant is suspected as being a big leap toward the cure of
| cancer we'll see a lot of scientists suddenly invest a lot of
| effort into studying it - similarly we see a lot of scientific
| focus around relatively novel plants because they have
| interesting attributes.
|
| The interesting thing for me in this study is that we've got a
| strong tie to surface level appearance - color and morphology in
| particular. So, we may have to supply some incentives to love
| those drab beige plants that aren't getting enough attention.
| 7952 wrote:
| There must be an evolutionary basis for some of this. Reacting
| to the appearance of plants could be really useful to a
| foraging human. But as modern humans we have repurposed that
| skill towards something more abstract. Pretty daffodils instead
| of starchy foods. But we probably all have some capacity to use
| that ability.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| The Chad orchid vs the virgin philodendron.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Yeah, I almost feel pity for that wheat, corn or microalgae that
| nobody studies...
|
| (And the theory that claims that any article starting with
| "scientists do this or that" is bullshit, wins again).
| globular-toast wrote:
| I can't quite tell if this is sarcasm or not. If it's not
| sarcasm, wheat and corn have been studied loads. I worked at an
| institute that specialised in cereals. If it is sarcasm, I
| actually find wheat and corn quite pretty. No comment on
| mircoalgae, though.
| montalbano wrote:
| As Poincare said a while ago:
|
| _The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he
| studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it
| because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would
| not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life
| would not be worth living._
|
| On a separate note, Arabidopsis isn't that pretty yet it has been
| The Model System in plant science for years..
| flobosg wrote:
| Model organisms such as _Arabidopsis thaliana_ are usually
| chosen based on criteria other than prettiness.
| lgessler wrote:
| Hah, funny to read that from someone who railed against the
| Weierstrass functions as "monsters". Nature's only nature if
| it's beautiful, then.
| focom wrote:
| If you have to live and think day and night about a plant, I can
| understand you pick the pretty one. But like with spider I am
| sure some people will get affection for the less loved one.
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