Fw: moths attraction to light

[Carol R. Lemmon]

I forwarded the original message to a naturalist friend  (William Horne)
siting that moths often sit for days on the screens of my porch or my
skylights and often lay eggs there.  I am forwarding Bill's reply to me.
Subject: Re: moths attraction to light


> A very interesting observation and conclusion.  How could this be tested
> further?  (I'm not suggesting that I'm looking for another study to get
> caught up in, only seeking to stimulate the intellectual process.)  I also
> certainly agree with his parting characterization of the channelizing
> nature of scientists and other intellectuals.  Occam's razor has often
> served science well by preventing the enshrinement of baroquely convoluted
> theories that serve only to hide the relatively simple mechanism that
> actually underlies the phenomenon in question ('though it did take many
> centuries before the Ptolemaic system yielded to the heliocentric model).
> However, the drive to tell a simple story, and the limited ability of our
> human minds to hold and integrate more than a limited number of variables,
> has probably resulted at least as much in the brutal oversimplification of
> an exquisitely complex mechanism.  To continue Thoreau's stream metaphore,
> how can you determine if a particular thread of a braided stream will lead
> you on to the main channel and not into a backwater oxbow or slough?
>
> I'm going to print this out and forward it to a friend, who will, I'm
> sure, welcome it as yet another weapon in his campaign against light
> pollution.
>
> An example of the need to oversimplify is found in this message, when he's
> talking about the chicken/egg koan.  It's not true that mutations can
> happen only in the egg.  What is true is that only mutations that occur in
> the egg (or sperm) will be passed on to future generations.  So, his
> conclusion is correct, but in the process of simplifying the story to
> better make his point, he has miseducated people about how and where
> mutations can occur

Bill