I know this is very trivial and adds nothing to the debate, but it represents a stereotype of scientists as one dimensional. The blog post from nature (http://blog.nature.org/2011/06/invasive-species-fight-mark-davis-peter-kareiva/) Opens with the line:"A famous person once observed that the signature of a civilized mind is the ability to hold two seemingly contradictory ideas in one’s head at the same time. This is exactly what conservation must learn to do when it comes to introduced (or what we often call “non-native” or “invasive”) species."
I find this somewhat offensive that the person who said this, F. Scott Fitzgerald in his 1936 essay "The Crack-up", is simply a "famous person". On top of that he's misquoted. It says nothing of being "civilized", but its a "test of first rate intelligence". I'm not sure why the author neglected to credit his source or get the quote right. I think we should portray ourselves (scientists I mean) as literate well rounded people. Off topic, but it seemed like such an egregious error that I thought it should be corrected. The full quote is as follows: "Before I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation – the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. " -- -- ---------------------- Edmund M. Hart, PhD. Post-Doctoral Researcher Dept. of Zoology University of British Columbia http://currentecology.blogspot.com http://openwetware.org/wiki/Hart
