Vol. 5 - We should cite pop culture more.
We should cite more than the scientific literature, because we understand the world around us through more than the scientific literature.
I can trace a lot of how I think about ecology, and why I think about it the way I do, to a single paragraph from the year 1965:
The thing the ecologically illiterate don't realise about an ecosystem is that it's a system. A system! A system maintains a certain fluid stability that can be destroyed by a misstep in just one niche. A system has order, flowing from point to point. If something dams that flow, order collapses. The untrained might miss that collapse until it was too late. That's why the highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences.
This is from Frank Herbert's Dune, and it is hinting at a theory that would only be expressed formally by Robert May seven years later. We must look at connections, we must look at perturbations, and we must look at the global effect of locally minute perturbations. I finally became a network ecologist when I understood this paragraph.
Imagine my joy, then, when I was able to bring this full circle, and to cite from the very same book in an actual publication! This was important to me, not because I think the citation is particularly relevant (it was, in context!), but because it was a way to keep track, in the scientific record, of where I got the inspiration for some ideas.
Citation has a dual purpose. We use it, often, as a way to support a statement. We cite the work of others because it provides justification, or legitimacy, to our own. But citations are also useful at representing the lineage of ideas. We cite because we want to make explicit that we all draw from a pool of ideas, which we bring into our own work. Deciding not to cite the works which gave us these ideas is malpractice.
But popular culture? It is not serious. It is quite unbecoming, I'm afraid. We do serious science, and so we should cite serious work. We want the knowledge we generate to be rigorous; it can only be built on rigorous foundations.
Not quite.
We care too much about the appearance of seriousness, and not enough about the humility to realize that we draw inspiration, ideas, and momentum from sources all around us. The correct way to do science must not be to cut ourselves from the world. We do science as whole individuals, shaped by our experiences, our interactions, and our culture. Every time we bring this to our research, we reaffirm that we want to understand this word because we are a part of it. No form of inspiration is beneath us if it helps us understand it more.
With all that said, stay tuned for Vol. 6 next week, where I will discuss why Inbox 0 is unrealistic, but Inbox 10 is doable.