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Spiders Use Earth's Electric Field to Fly Hundreds of Miles (2018)

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Re: Spiders Use Earth's Electric Field to Fly Hundreds of Miles (2018)

#31

Post by moate »

marcosdumay wrote: post #29
moate wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that? If it's a properly conducted experiment with good documentation why do you think the larger scientific community would ignore this?

Yes, I do. It's not published, it has no path to get into the attention of researchers. There's nothing a researcher can tell beforehand that says that all that documentation is high quality instead of just random trash. Laymen language does not align with academics ones. There are huge personal biases on every academic area. This happens all the time, by the way.

>>Yes, I do.

Do what?

>>It's not published, it has no path to get into the attention of researchers.

I mean, there's nothing that stops this hypothetical spider-man from publishing? If I was going through the trouble of doing independent spider research and came across something I found novel and groundbreaking, that's what I'd do.

Also, you still haven't stated your "many good reasons" for why this would be ignored other than "it (hypothetically) isn't published". You make a lot of assumptions, basically that people not working in academic settings are incapable of a-using language compatible with getting published and b- wouldn't want to get published which aren't true.

>>This happens all the time, by the way.

Of course it does. But "people in academia are still people and therefore accountable to their own biases and prejudicial decision making" doesn't fall under "good reasons to ignore a study" imo.

Re: Spiders Use Earth's Electric Field to Fly Hundreds of Miles (2018)

#32

Post by mellosouls »

pvaldes wrote: post #6
brighter2morrow wrote: post #2

>This idea—flight by electrostatic repulsion—was first proposed in the early 1800s, around the time of Darwin’s voyage. Peter Gorham, a physicist, resurrected the idea in 2013, and showed that it was mathematically plausible. And now, Morley and Robert have tested it with actual spiders. >First, they showed that spiders can detect electric fields. They put the arachnids on vertical strips of cardboard in the center o…

I find the term "citizen scientist" really annoying. Either you are a scientist or you aren't. If you do science you are a scientist. Point. No need to add any other adjetive. Science should not act like a club with first class and second class members.

This has also now spread to the world of software development, in the context of large management consultancies selling services to companies that want software without those pesky expensive Devs.

Strangely enough, I have been unable to find their definition for Citizen Management Consultants...

https://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/citizen-developer/

Re: Spiders Use Earth's Electric Field to Fly Hundreds of Miles (2018)

#33

Post by erikpukinskis »

derefr wrote: post #18
pvaldes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the term "citizen scientist" really annoying. Either you are a scientist or you aren't. If you do science you are a scientist. Point. No need to add any other adjetive. Science should not act like a club with first class and second class members.

> Science should not act like a club with first class and second class members. Science isn’t the club; academia is. Normally, when we say “scientist”, we mean “academic scientist”—i.e. someone who does science specifically for the enculturated ideals of academia (e.g. the advancement of common knowledge) using the process of academia (e.g. writing papers and sending them off to journals, attending conferences, etc.)…

Academia is a patrilineal network. It has nothing to do with conferences or journals (which exist outside of academia). It’s a simple matter of whether you can convince a committee of past PhDs to declare that you too have earned a PhD. That earns you the right to be on a PhD committee for someone else, and to be hired as “an academic”.

Then repeat the whole process except instead of a PhD, it’s tenure.

It’s purely a membership based organization. It’s a federation of treehouses with a rope ladders.

Re: Spiders Use Earth's Electric Field to Fly Hundreds of Miles (2018)

#34

Post by inflatableDodo »

mellosouls wrote: post #32
pvaldes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the term "citizen scientist" really annoying. Either you are a scientist or you aren't. If you do science you are a scientist. Point. No need to add any other adjetive. Science should not act like a club with first class and second class members.

This has also now spread to the world of software development, in the context of large management consultancies selling services to companies that want software without those pesky expensive Devs. Strangely enough, I have been unable to find their definition for Citizen Management Consultants... https://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/citizen-developer/

'Citizen Developer' sounds a bit like a corporate euphemism for a guard job at a gulag for political dissidents.

Re: Spiders Use Earth's Electric Field to Fly Hundreds of Miles (2018)

#35

Post by inflatableDodo »

marcosdumay wrote: post #8
brighter2morrow wrote: post #2

>This idea—flight by electrostatic repulsion—was first proposed in the early 1800s, around the time of Darwin’s voyage. Peter Gorham, a physicist, resurrected the idea in 2013, and showed that it was mathematically plausible. And now, Morley and Robert have tested it with actual spiders. >First, they showed that spiders can detect electric fields. They put the arachnids on vertical strips of cardboard in the center o…

If a layman did the experiment on his garage, it would be completely (and insistently) ignored by the scientific community for many reasons (most of them good ones).

2nd top story at the moment is about a 13 year old's research into the noise generated by hand dryers.

Re: Spiders Use Earth's Electric Field to Fly Hundreds of Miles (2018)

#36

Post by devxpy »

mellosouls wrote: post #32
pvaldes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the term "citizen scientist" really annoying. Either you are a scientist or you aren't. If you do science you are a scientist. Point. No need to add any other adjetive. Science should not act like a club with first class and second class members.

This has also now spread to the world of software development, in the context of large management consultancies selling services to companies that want software without those pesky expensive Devs. Strangely enough, I have been unable to find their definition for Citizen Management Consultants... https://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/citizen-developer/

How do you define an expensive developer though? I mean in academia you have paperwork to prove it, but what are the criteria for distinct here?

Re: Spiders Use Earth's Electric Field to Fly Hundreds of Miles (2018)

#37

Post by derefr »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #33
derefr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Science should not act like a club with first class and second class members. Science isn’t the club; academia is. Normally, when we say “scientist”, we mean “academic scientist”—i.e. someone who does science specifically for the enculturated ideals of academia (e.g. the advancement of common knowledge) using the process of academia (e.g. writing papers and sending them off to journals, attending conferences, etc.)…

Academia is a patrilineal network. It has nothing to do with conferences or journals (which exist outside of academia). It’s a simple matter of whether you can convince a committee of past PhDs to declare that you too have earned a PhD. That earns you the right to be on a PhD committee for someone else, and to be hired as “an academic”. Then repeat the whole process except instead of a PhD, it’s tenure. It’s purely a…

People confuse academia with credentialism. Credentialism is a parasite that has long infested academia (ever since nobles wanted to send their children to study under the famous Greek philosophers) and now presents as its face. But academia existed long before Universities gave out credentials; in fact, long before Universities had undergraduate programs.

The Universities were, originally, just cloisters of academic scientists doing research (and sharing lab space), that you—as another academic scientist—would visit to exchange knowledge. And, guess what? Universities are still that. You don’t need to have a Ph.D (or the desire to gain one) to travel to any random University campus, walk into a research laboratory, and exchange knowledge with the people there. The core function of academia still goes on, though it is encircled by the parasite of credentialism. Or you can avoid Universities, and just work with academics directly through academic organizations, like one of the many Royal Societies in the Commonwealth, or through “industrial-academic partnership” organizations like the IETF.

Academia still exists even at the heart of purely-industrial think tanks, and government organizations, as long as they hire people with the enculturated mindset of academia. You think you can’t just walk into NASA, or Boston Dynamics, and ask their research scientists stuff? You can. Because they’re academic scientists, and so they will exchange knowledge with you (as another academic scientist) and consider it part of their vocation, whether it counts as paid job-hours or not.

Re: Spiders Use Earth's Electric Field to Fly Hundreds of Miles (2018)

#38

Post by jonshariat »

justbaker wrote: post #24
jonshariat wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that it also triggered their ballooning, the mad scientist in me wonders if you could create a big field over a large area (like your back yard) and trigger a mass exodus of spiders.

This mass-ballooning has occurred in Australia from the spiders fear of drowning from heavy rains. In theory, your idea sounds plausible :)

haha sounds like a bad/good startup idea: Green NoHarm Spider pest control

Re: Spiders Use Earth's Electric Field to Fly Hundreds of Miles (2018)

#39

Post by Jim- »

cwkoss wrote: post #28
Jim- wrote: post #27

More like a showerthought, but: If arachnids are able to detect magnetic fields and react accordingly, are humans also able to do the same? Anecdotally, I've always had people commenting on how their mood is down when it is storming outside, and that they feel a 'negative energy' that doesn't motivate them to do anything. So I wonder if there is a relation?

Veritasium has a possibly-relevant video on negative ions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ--scjcAZ4

Wow, dude really goes all out to explain / prove it politely.

Thanks for the video. Never heard of Veritasium before, now one of my new favorite youtubers

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