It’s nice to see these casual references to PZ Myers, as if anyone would have heard of me:
The lab is at 101 Theory Drive, a developer’s idea of a scientific street name that Lynch found presumptuous.
It is a mark of the difficulty of life sciences — biology and its many descendants — that to call something a theory is to honor, not slight it. Theory, evolutionary biologist P.Z. Myers has written, is what scientists aspire to. Lynch, for all of his bombast, was respectful of the intellectual protocols of his science.
“I would have called it Hypothesis Drive,” he said.
The article is part of an interesting series on research into learning and memory, that is also unfortunately marred by some casual sexism on the part of its subject. See, Zuska, you just had to ruin it for me!
P.S. I think of myself as more of a developmental biologist than evolutionary biologist, but OK, I am very interested in evolutionary issues.
“A mark of the difficulty of life sciences?” So atomic theory, quantum theory and the theory of general relativity are not well-respected in the physical sciences now? Biology isn’t the only science in which the word “theory” has that meaning; it’s just the one that gets attacked most often by people who don’t know what a theory is.
Sorry to be off topic, but does anyone have a lead on the second part of Enemies of Reason? Should have been shown last night, right?
Just how often do you google yourself in the course of a normaL day ?
Actually, never. People email this stuff to me.
I’m a very lazy blogger, and I just wait for the stuff to be handed to me.
As someone who first learned about you through some of your old great posts on learning and neuroplasticity, I was surprised when the LA Times classified you as “evolutionary” and am happy to see the clarification as “developmental”.
Now, you don’t seem to write much about that anymore…is the topic off your radar?
If you haven’t already seen it, you the libel suit against you is the subject of a post a PositiveLiberty.
The mention of your name, imo, implies that you are already a household name :-)
Maybe you have Mark Kleiman to thank for making yours a household name out there in southern California? He gave you another mention this week also. I am beginning to suspect that you boys might have made a deal to keep each other on stage!