Comment on The Three Kinds of Scientific Research

• flora_explora@beehaw.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  #3 is not about making observations but about making a map of every tree. This is a common mistake of people, wanting to have a complete set of data on anything. I myself had to remind myself as well when designing projects. But in reality you cannot make a map of every tree and even if you could, what’s it worth? You need abstractions to understand anything and models are just that.

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  • lowleveldata@programming.dev ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I feel like it’s just useful for different use cases. You don’t need to start with making a map of all trees everytime but it certainly would be handy if someone else had compiled a map of all / most trees for reference.

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    • flora_explora@beehaw.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      It just isn’t feasible. But maybe this is my ecological background speaking. Because, sure, if I’d look at different branches of science, it might be doable and also useful. But if you look at ecology (and making a map of every tree is ecology) then this just isn’t useful enough for a task that is basically impossible to achieve. That’s why in ecological research there are some standard sampling methods, like plots, transects, etc. Within these, you could do a map of all the trees if necessary. But these will be only a fraction of the whole system you look at.

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      • Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        We have made some amazing discoveries with full-sky maps and analysis of the CMB. The human genome project has also yeilded a wealth of discoveries.

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