In defence of the scientific paper

Posted on July 14, 2007 by Chris Rowan

Janet brings us some rather vitriolic criticism by Sir Peter Medewar:

The scientific paper in its orthodox form does embody a totally mistaken conception, even a travesty, of the nature of scientific thought.

The argument seems to be that the usual structure of a scientific paper reinforces the notion of science as a purely inductive process: we start with an empty mind, collect the data, and then proceed to deduce theories and models which explain them. This, people like Medewar argue, plays down the importance of generating ideas as a first step to doing science, by pretending that we use data to generate hypotheses, rather than also using hypotheses to design our experiments (and decide what the hell we’re going to research anyway). These are deep philosophical waters for an innocent geologist to swim in, but it seems to me that this criticism, whilst valid in a sense, misses an important point: we don’t write scientific papers for historians and philosophers of science. We write them for other scientists.

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Categories: academic life, public science, publication

Where the Moon was at, 3.2 billion years ago

Posted on July 13, 2007 by Chris Rowan

It may not look particularly cosmic, but the rock below not only tells us that the Moon was present back in the Archean, but also that it was orbiting the Earth at a much closer distance than it is today.

Moodiestidalite.jpg

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Categories: Archean, geology, paper reviews, past worlds

What is a greenstone belt?

Posted on July 12, 2007 by Chris Rowan

I’ve spent the last two weeks towing students around the Barberton Greenstone Belt.

Barbertongreenstone.jpg

The belt consists of a sequence of volcanic (Onverwacht Group) and sedimentary (Fig Tree and Moodies Groups) rocks which have been heated up to around 400 degrees Celsius at some point after they formed, prompting the growth of new metamorphic minerals such as chlorite (which provides the ‘green’ in ‘greenstone’), and which are folded in and around a number of large granite intrusions. The Barberton region is a place of great importance to Archean geology, because it is one of the very oldest greenstone belts we know of (the lowermost volcanic rocks are almost 3.5 billion years old), and is therefore one of the oldest pieces of contiguous crust on the planet. More importantly, the processes which formed and deformed greenstone belts seem to be intimately associated with the formation of the first cratons, or stable continental interiors.

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Categories: Archean, fieldwork, geology, past worlds

A recommendation from your friendly neighbourhood field trip instructor

Posted on July 11, 2007 by Chris Rowan

Dear geology students everywhere,
Should you be out on a field mapping exercise, and one of the teaching staff does any of the following:
(1) Sits pointedly on or near a particular outcrop as you wander past;
(2) Deliberately wanders off in a different direction to the one you’re taking;
(3) Spends several minutes closely examining a particular part of the outcrop you’re currently working on;
(4) Says, “aren’t you going to look at that outcrop up there?” or, “maybe you should check what’s over the over side of that ridge…”;
or (5) Jumps up and down and shouts, “Look at this!”;
it might be worth your while to take the (increasingly unsubtle) hint.
I’ve just had, an interesting, if tiring, couple of weeks in the Barberton region. Lots of things to talk about in the next few days. First, though, I need to reacquaint myself with proper coffee.

Categories: ranting

Philosophia Naturalis #11: Powers of 11

Posted on June 28, 2007 by Chris Rowan

Physical Science covers a variety of disciplinary sins: particle physicists, geologists, and astronomers all fall within its remit. So, in the course of seeking out worthy entries for this months edition of Philosophia Naturalis, I’d find myself quickly moving from discussions of quantum computing to climate modeling, from string theory, to planetary geology, from thermodynamics to extra-solar planetary systems. As you can imagine, organizing such variety is not an easy task – so instead, I’ve decided to celebrate it. Each box on the image below represents one post (accessed by clicking), and its position on the logarithmic scale roughly corresponds to the length scale of the phenomena it discusses. This months’ collection of posts spans than 50 orders of magnitude – and the keen-eyed will note that I’ve compensated for the fact that this theme is probably one edition too late.

Powersof11.jpg

For convenience, below there’s the more traditional list of links, arranged from the very small scale to the very large.


In closing, I’d like to remind you that pedantic comments regarding my chosen length scales will be ignored (pretty easy when you’re a few hundred miles away from the Internet), and that the next edition of Philosophia Naturalis will be hosted by Mollishka at a geocentric view. Get reading, writing, and submitting!

Categories: bloggery, links