{"id":3091,"date":"2016-01-09T21:14:38","date_gmt":"2016-01-09T20:14:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/?p=3091"},"modified":"2016-01-20T22:21:53","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T21:21:53","slug":"a-future-without-species-the-acme-of-my-famelab-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/archives\/3091","title":{"rendered":"A future without species: The acme of my FameLab career"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"CYSWxBmUsAI65S5.jpg-large\"<\/a>
Hallelujah! Photo: @edbeltane<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today I gave my three minute presentation in the FameLab<\/a> Scottish Final at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh having got through the Edinburgh heat<\/a>. Needless to say I didn’t win. But reflecting on the whole experience I think it was very worthwhile. \u00a0Even after treating myself to sticky cake and a book from Blackwells to recover I can’t quite bring myself to say it was ‘fun’. Maybe fun like going for a run on a cold, wet, windy day is fun. Bracing. Invigorating. You know what I mean.<\/p>\n

My plan was to use the microphone stand as an anchor. The video of my last talk showed me\u00a0waddling about like a duck saying umm. Being rooted to the spot would at least prevent the waddling. Only after I finished did I find the microphone wasn’t on. Apparently I was perfectly audible so it wasn’t the end of the world – although it may have been the end of my hopes of winning – it did have the benefit of making the umms quieter.<\/p>\n

My thirteen year old daughter was in the audience and she admitted that she didn’t quite get what I was talking about. A better argument\u00a0for not winning FameLab cannot be made.<\/p>\n

The winner was Frank Machin (@necrobiology<\/a>) and the runner up “wildcard” was Daniel Olaiya (@DangerOlayer<\/a>) who also won the public vote. Both gave great presentations and it will be interesting to see what happens next. I liked Frank’s beard reference. Daniel was talking about happiness being more that chemicals – dangerously near psychology\/spirituality and exactly where I want to head<\/a>. I have a theory that mainstream scientists simply\u00a0don’t want to look at the mind but that is the subject for\u00a0a whole other blog post.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Sarah and Liz from the Beltane Public Engagement Network<\/a> for making it all possible and the National Museum of Scotland <\/a>for hosting.<\/p>\n

Here is the text of the talk I meant to give – it is about the bounding graph problem:<\/p>\n

Imagine a net stretched vertically between us from below the floor to high in the sky. <\/span><\/p>\n

At each knot in the net there is a diamond like jewel. <\/span><\/p>\n

Now imagine it stretches in 3D: to and from us filling all of space. <\/span><\/p>\n

This net is the digital space we are modelling the real world in.<\/span><\/p>\n

You probably think I\u2019m talking about the internet and in a way I am.<\/span><\/p>\n

The World Wide Web is way up there in the stratosphere.<\/span><\/p>\n

Up there each jewel represents a web page and we surf between them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Down here the jewels represent individual facts stored in databases around the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stuff is happening down here that is changing how we think about and do science.<\/span><\/p>\n

Traditional science is like storytelling and all stories need characters.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course we don\u2019t call them stories and characters. We call them hypotheses and, in my area of science, the characters are called species.<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem is there are no characters \/ no species in the information space.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let me show you what I mean.<\/span><\/p>\n

Take this jewel here. It is just the scientific name for common daisy – <\/span>Bellis perennis.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Through the net we can see it is connected to a lot of other facts.<\/span><\/p>\n