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Statistics and other stuff



Hi folks;
I have been enjoying the missives on statistics, especially the quote of (I
think) Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens, to be exact). I have been a Biologist
for a long time, though not with any "papers"; I have only a BS, and we all
know what that *really* means, right?
I find the science of Biology increasingly becoming more and more
mathematical, and it disturbs me. How can we reduce the mystery of Life to a
sequence of numbers (and who can understand them after we do)?
I took a course in Plant Ecology, and felt I needed a graduate degree in
mathematics to understand it; needless to say, it is one of the reasons I
never finished grad school...

In the good old days of Biology (and Ornithology in particular), much of the
seminal work was done by folks like J. J. Audubon, Alexander Wilson, even
some by people like Bartram, (who was not really an Ornithologist at all),
and of course by C. Darwin (where does your father keep his barnacles?).
Much of this work was wonderment at Creation, and an attempt at describing
it and with sharing it with others, not really at quantifying it. I think we
are getting away from this wonderment in our attempt to make Biology a
"hard" science (and it *is* getting harder - my advice; take a minor in Math
when you major in Bio).
The CBC and the GBBC look to me an attempt to put the wonder back into it,
while collecting a little data, even though that data is not "solid gold".

Just a little something;
While my Pug was walking me the other day (or was it the other way around...
I'm never sure) I found out why some of the neighborhood birds are upset
around night fall. Here's the story.
For some time now at night fall, there has been a group of small folks in
and around a line of spruce trees (they are NORWAY Spruce Josh!) making a
great fuss, as though mobbing something. You can hear Song Sparrows, White
Throated Sparrows, Towhees, Carolina Wrens, Juncoes, and who knows what all
carrying on something fierce. When I go out and walk around the Spruces, I
see nothing, as the Spruces are so thick, it is all dark in there, even in
day light.
When Piglet and I were walking by a few days ago, hearing the danger calls,
I wondered for the several hundredth time what could be causing such a
disturbance, and there from the end most Spruce a large bird popped out and
flew into a White Oak (native) and sat. It was an Accipiter, and a beauty,
and big. It had a buffy or gray breast, and was of a size that I think it
was likely an immature female Coopers; there was no barring on the tail, and
the breast was a solid gray. Looks for all the world like the illustrations
of a Gos, but I ain't going there, but it was huge. Just went out the door,
and the little folks are at it again, so a large Raptor is in the Spruces
tonight. I'm not even going to think Gos; that just couldn't happen. Maybe
on Mt. Mitchell, or somewhere north of here...
Alex Netherton
The Appalachian Naturalist
Asheville, NC
alex@alexnetherton.com
http://alexnetherton.com