
Oysters That Knew What Time It Was - DamnInteresting
https://www.wired.com/story/oysters-that-knew-what-time-it-was/
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scottrogowski
There is a popular argument being made recently that science and innovation
are slowing down. If true, the next question is what factors are causing this
slow down. The way that Brown was dismissed for (apparently) good research in
the 50s feels a lot like the struggles that heterodox academics seem to face
today. My question is whether that sort of dismissal and ostracization was
common during the "more innovative" eras of, say, 1800-1950. I legitimately
don't know. To use some big hitters as examples, I'm unaware of Einstein or
Millikan ever dealing with serious questioning of their work. Darwin faced
questions but more from non-academics. Freud should have faced more
questioning than he actually received.

Is it fair to characterize modern research as having a problem with group-
think and if so, how important is that problem in the supposed slow-down of
science?

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throwaway2048
Einstein actually faced fairly stiff opposition to his ideas amongst
physicists, especially his ideas about special relativity early in his career,
A lot of it was driven by the fact he was an outsider to the physics community
at the time. [1]

>This world is a strange madhouse. Currently, every coachman and every waiter
is debating whether relativity theory is correct. Belief in this matter
depends on political party affiliation." Thus begins a letter by Albert
Einstein to his one time close collaborator, mathematician Marcel Grossmann.
It was written on 12 September 1920, just some three weeks after Berlin’s
Philharmonic Hall had hosted a rambunctious rally at which Einstein had been
denounced as a fraud and scientific philistine.

Another good example of a revolutionary innovative thinker of the time being
branded a fraud and a charlatan by mainstream voices is Georg Cantor, who was
so badly treated he suffered mental illness for much of the rest of his life
because of how completely his theories had been rejected. [2]

[1] [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1111.2181](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1111.2181)

[2] [https://infinityplusonemath.wordpress.com/2017/02/11/no-
one-...](https://infinityplusonemath.wordpress.com/2017/02/11/no-one-liked-
cantor/)

~~~
raverbashing
True. One of the reasons why the solar eclipse experiments were so important
is that they corroborated Einstein's theory, but I don't think there was any
prior proof of Relativity except for the known discrepancies (Mercury's orbit
and the failure to measure ether velocity)

[https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/how-
the-1919-s...](https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/how-
the-1919-solar-eclipse-made-einstein-the-worlds-most-famous-scientist)

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mc32
It’s unfortunate the pressure researchers suffer to not come across as cranks
that can derail a field. His colleagues feared his theories would discredit
the nascent field of chronobiology.

Brown’s peers even ran an experiment that corroborated Brown’s hypothesis but
kept it secret.

Looks like Brown is being tentatively vindicated —it’s not completely
understood but it appears he was on to something circadian rhythms are somehow
influenced by magnetic fields in some species.

~~~
dwd
Anyone remember the B.C. Comic where BC claims "Clams have hands" and other
attributes only he witnesses and is ridiculed for?

You would have to wonder if that had any influence on their reluctance to
publish similar claims.

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steve_adams_86
Things like this are what I find exciting these days. It says to me that the
surrounding universe has a greater presence in our lives than we’d guess, and
the implications are huge. How much do we take for granted? How much of the
world isn’t originating from the world alone? In a way this seems somewhat
obvious, yet, I’d never have guessed that oysters are synchronized with
something that seems so distant and external. There’s so much left to learn
and understand.

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emmelaich
The strongest tidal influences (m2,s2,n2) are all about around 12.5 hours,
i.e. about half of the discovered cycle of 25. So it seems weird that the moon
theory was so easily dismissed. It doesn't even get a mention in the article.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_tides#Semi-
diurnal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_tides#Semi-diurnal)

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basicplus2
The question that arises is how much are our internal systems disrupted by
living in a sea of electromagnetic radiation from tv transmitters, radio
transmitters, mobile phones and towers, wifi etc

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gumby
Well his suggests that the oysters would Likely not be affected as they
weren’t responding to signals. Birds, i believe, navigate with a compass so
could suffer disruption

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coldcode
The more we learn of life, biology, chemistry and especially physics, the more
interesting life becomes. Today it's harder to separate complete nonsense from
a reality that hasn't reached sufficient consensus. All the reasons for
rejecting Brown were right at the time, but ultimately life turned out to be
more complex than people realized back then. Science ultimately is about
finding what's real and what's a temporary illusion of reality.

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mrphoebs
This was a very well written article.

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sho_hn
The article is an excerpt from a new book by Jo Marchant, a PhD/BSc
microbiology/genetics who apparently has made a name for herself writing
popular science books that intermingle covering a subject with covering the
science history and the colorful personalities involved.

Like you I enjoyed this piece tremendously, then discovered this info via the
byline below and ended up buying three of her books, including this new one. I
started her older book on King Tut's Mummy last night and it's equally fun so
far (it's about the discoveries of and research about this and related
mummies, and their relationship to the science news cycle - so you get stuff
about ancient DNA and that scene of science along with an inspection of
popular Egyptology). The third book I bought is about the Antikythera
Mechanism.

This author might end up giving me a similar popsci fix as Simon Singh did as
a kid! :)

Side note, if you end up picking the King Tut book, this blog series is a
fantastic companion adopting a similar approach to the topic of the Pyramids
and their research history:

[https://analog-antiquarian.net/2019/01/11/chapter-1-the-
char...](https://analog-antiquarian.net/2019/01/11/chapter-1-the-charlatan-
and-the-gossip/)

This is the side project of Jimmy Maher, better known as the author of the
Digital Antiquarian blog. Under the guise of _Analog_ Antiquarian he wrote
this and is now writing further history books in chapter-as-blog form about
the Seven World Wonders of antiquity. It's some of the best reading I did last
year, and since some of the historic characters overlap with Marchant's book
they end up combining into a fuller picture for me currently.

I love this genre - learning about history via the history of the historians
and researchers. You learn about the subject as well as of the twists and
turns of how the present day knowledge was amassed. Singh, but also Neal
Stephenson novels to some extent (couched in fiction), etc. And, though more
of a witness' account rather than critical writing, the favorite book of my
youth, John Chadwick's "The Decipherment of Linear B".

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mrphoebs
Thanks for the information and links, looks like a great way to spend some
downtime.

