Friday, December 10, 2010

Journal Of Unsurprising Research

I was reading in Scientific American* a few months back that researchers had sequenced the Neanderthal genome and then compared it with modern humans'. Their conclusion was that, at some time in the past, before Neanderthals died out completely, humans and Neanderthals interbred.
   This is a surprise?
   I applaud the effort the researchers went to, it's not easy getting genetic material from 60,000 year old bones, but I could have pointed them to any number of bullies and malcontents from my middle school and high school years to prove the caveman-interbreeding hypothesis. Low-browed and thick-limbed, dim-witted and guttural, these guys were throwbacks to pre-history, when strength and cruelty were needed instead of compassion and insight.
   I remember one guy in particular, a year ahead of me in middle school, who was on the football team. Keep in mind that we were, what?, twelve? thirteen? And already this guy was covered in a carpet of body hair so thick that he looked like a chimp on the run. Or a Neanderthal, now that I've read the research. It was astonishing, he even had wiry hair on the second knuckle of his fingers. Put him in wolf fur and give him a spear to jab into a mastodon and I think he would have been right at home.
   What I'm saying is I already knew what these researchers have proved. So I got to thinking, what other non-surprises do scientists have in store for us? Fire is hot? UFOs are real? Cats want to murder their owners and eat their eyeballs? These are all well-established propositions.
   Scientists should get extra points for coming up with new stuff. Like the universe is held together with twine. Space-twine, sure, but it's still twine. Or proving that your face really will stick like that, just like your mother said.
   See? I should be a scientist, there's lots of stuff I could test. They make a pretty good living. There's got to be a lot of millionaire scientists, right?


* yeah, I like reading about science stuff, so what? Don't you oppress me...

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