But I reject it.
It’s a silly argument. All science is built on observation and hypothesis testing, or it isn’t science. Physicists and biologists don’t need to argue with each other.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Agreed.
“Physicists and biologists don’t need to argue with each other.” Oh, you are just being reasonable now. None of that!
Of course it’s a silly argument — this is SMBC.
I interpret it as a dig at “physics envy” — the claim that everyone else is jealous of physicists because their field is so pure and mathematically precise — a science of beautiful generalizations rather than messy particulars (like biology). The comic turns that argument on its head.
“Okay, assume a uniform spherical cell…”
According to one of my undergraduate professors;
Given the same unsolved problem, a physicist would reduce the number of variables, and a biologist would collect more data.
stevewatson @3:
First, I’ve never met or heard any physicist who has said that. Second, every model in physics is an approximation.
What is being referenced in the first panel is a quote attributed to Ernest Rutherford.
All science Is either physics or stamp collecting.
As I just posted elsethread, Quote Investigator hasn’t found it in his works, but maybe Bernal heard Rutherford say it.
And the comic is clearly a snarky response that a biologist might come up with, on hearing their entire field dismissed as being “stamp collecting”. Weinersmith likes staging slapfights and similar absurdities between academics.
Compare and contrast, Weinersmith on antenna engineering:
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/frequency-2
At some point or another, someone will mention Orchestrated objective reduction.
My favorite is, “There is no God and Dirac is his prophet.” attributed to Physicist Wolfgang Pauli about his colleague Paul Dirac. There is another version of the story where the quote is, “There is no God and Dirac is his name.” Never heard of a physicist that didn’t find it funny either way… including Paul Dirac.
David Utidjian @9: That is a good ‘un, but my favourite Dirac story is that, on meeting Feynman, he (supposedly) said “I have an equation. Do you have one too?”. Best ice-breaker ever.
Sounds right to me…
Owlmirror @7
I once built a 2 metre J Pole antenna out of copper plumbing pipe, carefully dry fitting it together to get the SWR ratio perfect before soldering the joints and then mounted at the peak of the roof gable only to find it working very poorly due to multipath problems. I had to move it a metre to the side it get it properly positioned between a repeater 50 km to the East and a mountain range 30 km to the west.
“Brain Surgeon” — That Mitchell and Webb Look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkL7MQE9Xmg
physicists invented the transistor, put billions of them on a chunk of silicon, and now we have cat videos on demand.
biologists discovered DNA, can edit genes, but we still don’t have working crocoduck.
biology is hard!
“All science is built on observation and hypothesis testing, or it isn’t science.”
As a mathematician I disagree… I think mathematics is science. That said I do agree with the spirit of the argument.
Biology is just applied chemistry.
Chemistry is just applied physics.
@16 And scientists are just applied biology.
phillipbrown, still.
Physics, chemistry, biology… try doing those without maths!
(robert79 is pointing to the fundamental ground)
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Or is he? Those are all philosophy, just not the pure type.
Definitely not theology! ;)
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I know, I know… back in the day, I used to go on about how nice it would have been if science had instead retained its ‘natural philosophy’ concept.
(Of course that might confuse some, given philosophy of science is a real thing, unlike the science of philosophy, which is not)
Purity
(Wow, 2008! The olden days! The before times!)
Militant Agnostic #12
I think Mr. Bean had a similar problem with his TV’s rabbit ears.
Thanks Owlmirror.
I couldn’t find my saved link.
2008 forsooth!