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Inspiring Science

~ Casting light on great ideas

Inspiring Science

Category Archives: Blog

Back at last!

12 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by sedeer in Blog

≈ 2 Comments

After a longer-than-intended hiatus, Inspiring Science is back! I’m sorry for disappearing without explanation or announcement and for staying away for so long. Truth be told, I didn’t decide to put the blog on pause until I realized that it had already happened. I don’t yet know how often I’ll be posting — I guess that’s something I’ll figure out n the coming weeks — but I’ll do my best to post regularly.

I’ll start with a book review today, and I’ve already got a couple of other posts planned, one about ants farming and another about evolution and neural networks. I hope some of my (former) regular readers will return and more people will join us. Say  hi in the comments, and feel free to let me know if there’s a subject you’d like me to write about!

The Social Evolution Forum

07 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by sedeer in Blog, Science communication

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Education, evolution, science and society, Science communication, Science in Society

I’m very pleased to be part of the Evolution Institute‘s new group blog, The Social Evolution Forum. SEF brings together a range of writers concerned with evolution in a broad sense, from ecology to cultural evolution. To get an idea of what SEF is about, have a look at DS Wilson’s announcement post.

My first post is on a pernicious and persistent misunderstanding of evolution: the myth of progress.

Evolutionary theory is extremely powerful and pervasively misunderstood. Stripped to its core, it describes an interplay between replication, variation, and selection which can generate complexity, diversity, and novelty. Its elegance lies in its simplicity and power, a combination which unfortunately also makes it readily misunderstood.

The idea of evolutionary progress is the most common – and probably the most damaging – misunderstanding of evolution. It lingers behind the phrase “higher animals” and the claim that humans evolved from apes (we are apes). It lurches into full view in the famous March of Progress illustration which has, unfortunately, become iconic of evolution.

You can read the whole thing on the SEF site. While you’re there, have a look at the other inaugural posts by Arun Sethuraman, Lee Alan Dugatkin, Jennifer Raff, Anthony Biglan, Jeremy Yoder, Madhusudan Katti, and Peter Turchin to get an idea of the voices and approaches you’ll find on the Social Evolution Forum.

Beacon: mantis shrimp and more…

26 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by sedeer in Blog

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

ants, biology, communicating science, crowd funding, evolution, journalism, Kickstarter, mantis shrimp, Popular science, science, science and society, Science journalism, writing

Here’s a taste of what I’ve been writing on Beacon so far. It’s been enormously fun so far, and the focus is a bit different from what I post on here. I’ve got lots of other great story ideas coming up for Beacon; I’m looking forward to researching them and sharing what I find with my subscribers. For now, here are a few excerpts from my first few stories to entice those of you who might be on the fence:

Fit for a Queen
In this short creative nonfiction piece, a young queen sets off into the dangerous world alone. Burdened with her people’s future, she has to persevere in the hope that help will arrive in time. 

The young queen had to find shelter soon. Everything depended on that. Stumbling, she scrambled over the rough ground as she looked for a place to hide — a crevice or even just a protective overhang. She spotted a fissure in the rocks ahead and made for it, a crack just wide enough for her to squeeze through. Safe at last, she slowed down, conserving her energy for the task ahead. Continue reading…

Through Alien Eyes
Mantis shrimp, famous for their lightning-quick punch, also have the most advanced eyes we know about and a fundamentally different approach to vision. Get a glimpse of how they see the world.

If we were designed in God’s image, it’s hard to imagine what model inspired the mantis shrimp, but it must have been pretty impressive. Heavily armoured and formidably armed, these marine crustaceans kill their prey — molluscs, crustaceans, and small fish — with a strike that accelerates as fast as a .22 calibre bullet. They look out at the world with a pair of eyes mounted on stalks which they can move independently, tracking an object with one eye while scanning their surroundings with the other. One researcher described the effect as “most uncrustacean-like, suggesting an almost ‘primate-like’ awareness of their surroundings.” Continue reading…

A Grander View
In a world that’s brimming over with life, we often think of ourselves as somehow special. Join me on a journey of exploration through the lives and evolution of the other creatures on Earth. Along the way, we’ll discover that the living world is infused with a richness of marvels, of which we are just a small part.

It all started with agriculture. Or maybe fire. Or was it the first time we used language? The truth is that I don’t know when it started and I won’t pretend to, but at some point we invented the conceit of human exceptionalism and that myth has grown ever since. It’s infiltrated our language and permeates our thoughts, shaping how we see the world. Seduced by our ingenuity, we imagine ourselves as apart from the rest of the world, elevated above it or at least dominant within it. Continue reading…

Update on my Beacon project — goal reached!

28 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by sedeer in Blog

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

biology, communicating science, crowd funding, journalism, Kickstarter, Popular science, science, science and society, Science journalism, writing

With a couple of days left to go, we’ve already got more than enough backers to launch my Beacon project! A huge “thank you!” to each of you who contributed, whether by joining the project or spreading the word. Many of my backers came via your Facebook posts and the emails you sent out. Thanks for helping get my first crowd-funding experience off to a great start — I couldn’t have done it without you! And if somebody wants to sign up but hasn’t yet, they still can.

Thanks,
Sedeer

Update on my Beacon project — 8 days to go!

22 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by sedeer in Blog

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

biology, communicating science, crowd funding, journalism, Kickstarter, Popular science, science, science and society, Science journalism, writing

First of all, I’d like to say a big “Thank you!” to everyone who’s already joined my project or shared the link. With your help, we’ve gotten a quarter of the way there in just six days. That’s a great start, but we’ll need to pick up the pace to hit the target on time! Continue reading →

Help support my writing through crowdfunding!

16 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by sedeer in Blog

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

biology, communicating science, crowd funding, internet, journalism, publishing, science, science and society, Science communication, Science in Society, Science journalism, society, writing

I’m really excited to announce that I’ve been invited to write at Beacon, an innovative website which crowd-sources funding to support reporting by freelance writers (like me!). The idea is simple. Readers pay $5 a month to fund a writer on Beacon; in exchange, you get access to the writer’s work and every other story by every other writer on Beacon. It’s like Netflix, but for writing. I think it’s a great idea, and I’m really excited to be a part of it, but I need your help to make it happen. Continue reading →

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All text and original images by Sedeer El-Showk. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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