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How Toby Spribille Overturned 150 Years of Biology about Lichens

theatlantic.com

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Re: How Toby Spribille Overturned 150 Years of Biology about Lichens

#41

Post by s0rce »

frandroid wrote: post #21
archgoon wrote: post #7

The main revolution 150 years ago was that lichen was not a single organism. I'm not sure if refining that number from 2 to 3 is legitimately "overturning"; I was reading the article expecting them to say that the two organisms were in fact sharing the same DNA and were in fact sexual dimorphs all this time. On the other hand, figuring out why we've been failing to grow lichen by merging the two species manually for…

We all learn this story in school, and people have been looking at these guys for a long time. What did you want, a human/algae symbiosis to make this an overturn?

I think its very exciting work and he clearly made an important finding in lichen biology. But, overturning would be if he found that it wasn't 2 organisms but just 1. The previous 2 organisms are still there, there just happens to also be another one that people missed. Everyone else wasn't wrong and the previous work hasn't been overturned, simply added to. This is the basis of most modern science. This doesn't take away from the importance of the work, simply that the headline is a bit click-baity.

Re: How Toby Spribille Overturned 150 Years of Biology about Lichens

#42

Post by safeignorance »

smt88 wrote: post #27

Did he create opportunities for himself, or did he live in a country where other taxpayers covered the cost of his college education? He's an impressive person, but "poor guy pulled himself up by the bootstraps using sheer force of will" narratives usually fall apart when you look more closely.

An American without a high school diploma or GED convinced a seriously good German university to admit him. That's pretty impressive.

If I were in his situation, there's no way I would have had the gull to try that route. Probably would've just stayed in the forest service. Maybe gone for a GED then community college then a local land grant. By which time I'd be too burnt out on it all (and too old) to even think about a doctorate.

There's no doubting that the German people helped this guy achieve what he achieved. There's also no doubting that he was truly exceptionally resourceful (and maybe a bit lucky, too).

Re: How Toby Spribille Overturned 150 Years of Biology about Lichens

#43

Post by kafkaesq »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #4

Could we change the title to something a little less clickbaity/classist? Even though it's the title of the actual article, trailer parks have nothing to do do with the actual content.

I think we should leave click-baity titles the way they are, actually. On the general principle that the -> HN mapping should be "information preserving" to whatever degree is reasonably feasible.

So if the authors of a story are being irresponsibly click-baity in their choice of title wording... it would not only be remiss of us not to convey this fact -- we would, in effect, be covering their asses -- which really now, are better left exposed in cases like these.

Re: How Toby Spribille Overturned 150 Years of Biology about Lichens

#44

Post by iaw »

James001 wrote: post #20
whack wrote: post #8

The headline makes it seem as though some guy overturned a fundamental precept of modern biology, while living in a Trailer in Montana. None of the above is true. 1) He happened to grow up in a trailer in Montana, but eventually moved on to attend a good German university, and was no longer living in a "Montana trailer park" while making this discovery. 2) The guy corrected a misunderstanding that people had, regardi…

> The specific makeup of Lichens though, is an extremely niche field, that doesn't affect the broader field of Biology in any significant way. Well you would be wrong. This guy almost single-handedly led the way to enabling the cultivation of lichen in laboratory conditions, something that has had very limited success up until now. What are the benefits of cultivating lichen? It's another way to farm biological molec…

Lichen may be a good next step for manufacturing more complex energy-intensive chemicals than yeast can.

There is a good chance that this discovery will be invaluable in 30 years time.

Re: How Toby Spribille Overturned 150 Years of Biology about Lichens

#45

Post by dang »

adultSwim wrote: post #10

How one click-baity title overturned 158 years of publishing integrity

Please don't make the threads even worse by posting comments like this.

If you want to complain about a title, the valuable way to do it is to suggest a better title, i.e. an accurate and neutral one.

Re: How Toby Spribille Overturned 150 Years of Biology about Lichens

#46

Post by [deleted] »

whack wrote: post #8

The headline makes it seem as though some guy overturned a fundamental precept of modern biology, while living in a Trailer in Montana. None of the above is true. 1) He happened to grow up in a trailer in Montana, but eventually moved on to attend a good German university, and was no longer living in a "Montana trailer park" while making this discovery. 2) The guy corrected a misunderstanding that people had, regardi…

[deleted]

Re: How Toby Spribille Overturned 150 Years of Biology about Lichens

#47

Post by dang »

kafkaesq wrote: post #43
xkcd-sucks wrote: post #4

Could we change the title to something a little less clickbaity/classist? Even though it's the title of the actual article, trailer parks have nothing to do do with the actual content.

I think we should leave click-baity titles the way they are, actually. On the general principle that the -> HN mapping should be "information preserving" to whatever degree is reasonably feasible. So if the authors of a story are being irresponsibly click-baity in their choice of title wording... it would not only be remiss of us not to convey this fact -- we would, in effect, be covering their asses -- which really…

The problem with that argument is that the titles of HN submissions don't merely reflect an outside reality. They exert an influence on this site itself—one of the most powerful influences, in fact. So it's more like breathing polluted air, say, than watching a film.

Re: How Toby Spribille Overturned 150 Years of Biology about Lichens

#48

Post by dang »

smt88 wrote: post #27

Did he create opportunities for himself, or did he live in a country where other taxpayers covered the cost of his college education? He's an impressive person, but "poor guy pulled himself up by the bootstraps using sheer force of will" narratives usually fall apart when you look more closely.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12143635 and marked it off-topic.

Re: How Toby Spribille Overturned 150 Years of Biology about Lichens

#49

Post by kafkaesq »

dang wrote: post #47
kafkaesq wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we should leave click-baity titles the way they are, actually. On the general principle that the -> HN mapping should be "information preserving" to whatever degree is reasonably feasible. So if the authors of a story are being irresponsibly click-baity in their choice of title wording... it would not only be remiss of us not to convey this fact -- we would, in effect, be covering their asses -- which really…

The problem with that argument is that the titles of HN submissions don't merely reflect an outside reality. They exert an influence on this site itself—one of the most powerful influences, in fact. So it's more like breathing polluted air, say, than watching a film.

A most colorful analogy. I agree that there's also an important counterpoint, in that sense.

Re: How Toby Spribille Overturned 150 Years of Biology about Lichens

#50

Post by dang »

smt88 wrote: post #36
jessaustin wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we really need this political bullshit here? Dude made a discovery, let's not pick it apart for bizarre partisan reasons.

Politics is inextricable from human life, news, and technology. Any story here can be political, and that should be fine. Whatever my political leanings, I had an issue with this sentence: > creating opportunities for yourself where none seem to exist The fact is that there were opportunities . In countries where education is free and accessible, there are always opportunities. If the subject is spreading education,…

That argument isn't valid here and does not lead to positive contributions to HN. Why? Because the topic here is/was concrete: a biologist who made a discovery about lichens. To use that as fodder for an ideological argument is to take the discussion in the wrong direction: away from something that gratifies intellectual curiosity into something that does not, however important it may otherwise be.

Intellectual curiosity is HN's core value. Curiosity is gratified by things that are specific, so the specific is precious here. Generic ideological arguments are the opposite: they're reruns of episodes seen many times, for which circumstances are interesting only as primer fuel, quickly to be discarded on getting going.

Worse, the energy they mobilize is agitated and the stance they induce is rigid. They throw people out out of the relaxed, reflective state that makes for good HN conversation, charging their reflexes and putting them into battle mode . From an intellectual curiosity point of view, it doesn't matter what the battle is—we end up with scorched earth either way.

It may be important to get people marching, but let's not march over a lichen garden.

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