Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose

 

Laurie, the organizer of the Louisville Area Skeptics meetup group (http://www.meetup.com/Louisville-Area-Skeptics/), mentioned at last night's Science Café meeting that future presenters will include a retired couple from India who now spend most of their time in the United States.  For a few months each year, though, they travel through rural India with a mobile science lab, teaching kids about science.  Laurie mentioned that this is similar to what she does here in our community.  Sometimes she goes to a school that has a science lab, which the kids go to once or twice a week, and it's great.  Sometimes—all too often—there is no science lab at all.

 

This prompted a string of thoughts to run through my head: Is once a week for a science lab enough? That seems so slight.  But shouldn't every subject taught in a school be considered, in some way, a science?  Do I consider all such subjects a science?  Some obviously have more to do with science than others: Math and the other sciences are closely bound.  History involves lots of research, with ties to archaeology, geology, psychology, and medicine.

 

How do you apply science to literature and art, though?  I suppose I'm so used to the skeptical mindset now that it never seems natural to erect a wall between "the sciences" and "the humanities."  They are all wrapped up together.

 

At last night's Science Café meetup, Dr. Lee Alan Dugatkin gave a presentation based on his new book, _Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose_ (http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Jefferson-Giant-Moose-Natural/dp/0226169146).  I have not read the book—yet. I now intend to, because if it's even half as interesting and amusing as Dr. Dugatkin's presentation, it should be engrossing.

 

Dr. Dugatkin related how many of our nation's founding fathers became involved in a conflict that was only tangentially related to our war of independence from England.  Biology, literature, history, nationalism, economics, politics, and personal and professional pride were all wrapped up together as leaders in the fledgling United States sought to refute the theory of New World degeneracy: the notion that animal species in North America were smaller, feebler, slower, and less diverse than their Old World counterparts, due largely to the New World's allegedly colder, damper climate.

 

Thomas Jefferson, who proclaimed himself to be a scientist first and a politician second, became obsessed (according to Dugatkin) with refuting these claims, which became widely believed in Europe with the publication of the writings of esteemed French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon.  Jefferson and his colleagues read these theories with alarm, for the notion that the New World was land which was inhospitable to robust life (including humans and all their enterprises) was an assault not just on the truth and their own personal pride, but also on economic ventures and the integrity of their developing nation.  Jefferson undertook an effort to have a huge moose shot, preserved, and sent to France to illustrate the error of the theory.

 

It seemed obvious that Dr. Dugatkin really knew his material, and took delight in answering questions.  He was an engaging speaker on a very interesting topic, illustrated by great anecdotes (and when you mix cultural conflict, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, French naturalists, frontiersmen, giant moose, and Native Americans, you're bound to get some great anecdotes).  It was often quite funny. It even involved weasel penises.

 

Stephen Jay Gould wrote a series of essays for Natural History magazine in which he sought to illustrate the importance of the very human, error-prone personalities who have been involved in our scientific history.  In much the same way as I can't see any real line that keeps science out of art, there is often a false notion that science is an endeavor removed from other human passions.  That couldn't be less accurate; all human prides and prejudices are displayed in the history of science, and without their great motivations, the sciences themselves would be stunted and feeble.