#science journalism
In academic circles, we have a half-joking-but-not-really saying: “All Research Is Me-Search,” and Leigh Cowart’s new book has taken that dictum to titanic new heights and visceral, evocative depths.
Cowart is a former ballet dancer, a biologist who researched Pteronotus bats in the sweltering jungles of Costa Rica, and a self-described “high-sensation-seeking masochist.” They wrote this book to explore why they were like this, and whether their reasons matched up with those of so many other people who engage is painful activities of their own volition, whether for the pain itself, or the reward afterward. Full disclosure: Leigh is also my friend, but even if they weren’t, this book would have fascinated and engrossed me.
Hurts So Good is science journalism from a scientist-who-is-also-a-journalist, which means that the text is very careful in who and what it sources, citing its references, and indexing terms to be easily found and cross-referenced, while also bringing that data into clear, accessible focus. In that way, it has something for specialists and non-specialists, alike. But this book is also a memoir, and an interior exploration of one person’s relationship to pain, pleasure, and— not to sound too lofty about it— the whole human race.
The extraordinarily personal grounding of Hurts So Good is what allows this text to be more than merely exploitative voyeurism— though as the text describes, exploitative voyeurism might not necessarily be a deal-breaker for many of its subjects; just so long as they had control over when and how it proceeds and ends. And that is something Cowart makes sure to return to, again and again and again, turning it around to examine its nuances and infinitely fuzzy fractaled edges: The difference between pain that we instigate, pain that we can control, pain we know will end, pain that will have a reward, pain we can stop when and how we want… And pain that is enforced on us.
Read the rest of “Review: Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose, by Leigh Cowart”atTechnoccult.net
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You can learn a lot from social media but you gotta go do stuff to get it! I understand it’s not always feasible, so, I’m trying to show you some of the inevitable biases of media. Even if someone is an excellent and accurate journalist.
Both of these animals belong to the Norwegian Mangen pack (pictures taken in 2019). Looking at these pictures makes it kind of hard to believe the scientists’ claim that these are indeed pure wolves. Pure wolves do not have white markings like this. However, I wonder if it is possible that this is a mutation?
Holy crap. I mean, they could be coywolves? Or they have recent dog in their lineage, frankly I’ve never seen a coloration like that on wolves without some other canine in the mix. The second image does look a bit dogish.
No coyotes in Europe so dog hybrids would be the only option
I’m currently writing an article on blue-eyed coyotes and I’m sort of struggling to find really well-agreed-upon scientific explanations for differences in canid phenotypes (or let’s limit it to colors.) On the one hand, dogs, wolves, and coyotes are completely interfertile (read that carefully, interfertile), meaning it’s genetically possible for a coydog to have babies with a coywolf and they can have babies with a wolfdog etc forever (other behavioral factors make it not-extremely-common, though.)
I looked into the “domestication hypothesis” which is when animals are more friendly to humans they’ll develop associated characteristics like white spots, floppy, ears, blue eyes etc…but I don’t know if that’s really universally accepted among animals that are not selectively bred by humans? If friendliness and colors are truly linked, then you’ll see a disproportionate number of oddly-colored canids in your photos because those ones allowed themselves to be photographed. However the data is inherently troublesome, because how do you know the colors of animals you’re notphotographing? Trail cams can help but tbh there are a lot more community scientists on iNaturalist than funded studies! And trail cams can also affect results because they might attract animals who are behaviorally different, ie more curious about novel human objects.
The third and safest answer is “it’s a mutation.” However that doesn’t tell you much because literally all characteristics are mutations. I also wonder if any of this is really specific to canids - they are special because they can breed with domestic animals, but there aren’t a lot of really highly-domesticated deer around for the deer populations to breed with. And yet piebald deer exist.
If anyone has any reading to recommend about diverse canid coloration, especially if it can help regarding blue-eyed coyotes, and why this diversity persists, lmk!
Post link
In academic circles, we have a half-joking-but-not-really saying: “All Research Is Me-Search,” and Leigh Cowart’s new book has taken that dictum to titanic new heights and visceral, evocative depths.
Cowart is a former ballet dancer, a biologist who researched Pteronotus bats in the sweltering jungles of Costa Rica, and a self-described “high-sensation-seeking masochist.” They wrote this book to explore why they were like this, and whether their reasons matched up with those of so many other people who engage is painful activities of their own volition, whether for the pain itself, or the reward afterward. Full disclosure: Leigh is also my friend, but even if they weren’t, this book would have fascinated and engrossed me.
Hurts So Good is science journalism from a scientist-who-is-also-a-journalist, which means that the text is very careful in who and what it sources, citing its references, and indexing terms to be easily found and cross-referenced, while also bringing that data into clear, accessible focus. In that way, it has something for specialists and non-specialists, alike. But this book is also a memoir, and an interior exploration of one person’s relationship to pain, pleasure, and— not to sound too lofty about it— the whole human race.
The extraordinarily personal grounding of Hurts So Good is what allows this text to be more than merely exploitative voyeurism— though as the text describes, exploitative voyeurism might not necessarily be a deal-breaker for many of its subjects; just so long as they had control over when and how it proceeds and ends. And that is something Cowart makes sure to return to, again and again and again, turning it around to examine its nuances and infinitely fuzzy fractaled edges: The difference between pain that we instigate, pain that we can control, pain we know will end, pain that will have a reward, pain we can stop when and how we want… And pain that is enforced on us.
Read the rest of “Review: Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose, by Leigh Cowart”atTechnoccult.net
