Researchers keep identifying new species, but they have no idea about the life cycle of a given species or its other hosts. They cut open an animal and find a new species. Where did it come from? What effect does it have on its host? What is its next host? They don't know and they don't have time to find out, because there are too many other species waiting to be discovered and described.
Interpretation
Scientists often discover new species without fully understanding their biology or ecological roles.
This quote by Carl Zimmer highlights the challenges faced by researchers in the field of biology, particularly in the area of taxonomy and ecology. It emphasizes the rapid pace at which new species are being identified, yet points out the lack of understanding regarding their life cycles and interactions with other organisms. The urgency of discovery often overshadows the necessity of in-depth study, leading to gaps in knowledge about newly found species and their ecological significance.
In practice
In a biology conference, one might use this quote to stress the importance of understanding ecological interactions.
At long last, we may be returning to the original two-sided sense of the word virus, which originally signified either a life-giving substance or a deadly venom. Viruses are indeed exquisitely deadly, but they have provided the world with some of its most important innovations. Creation and destruction join together once more.
Geology has shared the fate of other infant sciences, in being for a while considered hostile to revealed religion; so like them, when fully understood, it will be found a potent and consistent auxiliary to it, exalting our conviction of the Power, and Wisdom, and Goodness of the Creator.
I suggest that going to Mars means permanence on the planet - a mission by which we are building up a confidence level to become a two-planet species.
I could never have gone far in any science because on the path of every science the lion Mathematics lies in wait for you.
It is baffling, I must say, that in our modern world we have such blind trust in science and technology that we all accept what science tells us about everything - until, that is, it comes to climate science.
It is a good principle in science not to believe any 'fact'---however well attested---until it fits into some accepted frame of reference. Occasionally, of course, an observation can shatter the frame and force the construction of a new one, but that is extremely rare. Galileos and Einsteins seldom appear more than once per century, which is just as well for the equanimity of mankind.
God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world.
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