One of our bioinformatics has a sign at his desk that says “taxonomy is a social construct”.
Mom they're fighting again
Submitted 2 weeks ago by gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/pictrs/image/1d59f306-6981-4dda-a9d8-81353d23a461.webp
Comments
runner_g@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
ameancow@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Conservatives hate this one trick!
(The trick: literally everything in all aspects of reality, from the larges to smallest scales to every branch of life and consciousness is a motherfucking SPECTRUM. No hard lines. Nothing is solid. Not even the matter you’re standing or sitting on.)
runner_g@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
“Yah but nuance is so hard! It’s so much easier to just hate everything I don’t understand”
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
“taxonomy is a social construct”
i mean for bacteria it actually is because bacteria can exchange genes across “species” so it’s not really a species… at least not in the sense of eukaryotes (where species are defined such that different species cannot exchange genes with each other)
flora_explora@beehaw.org 2 weeks ago
Even for anything else, it actually is. Taxonomy is our construct that we came up with as a society to classify life. We cannot ever be “right” about it, it can just be more or less useful for us to understand life.
AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
A paper I quite enjoy is “Queer Theory for Lichens” which argued that queer theory is genuinely a useful framework for studying lichens; Lichens resist categorisation in a manner that feels like they’re actively mocking our taxonomic efforts.
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Famko@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
That coconut is clearly not on a palm tree, mate. /s
Ephera@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
To be honest, I’ve noticed that with lots of foods. I know what the thing looks like in stores, but I have no idea what it’s like in nature.
Cashews were another recent one, where I never would have guessed what they look like:
Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
If that’s not a coconut, what the fuck have I been eating?
ameancow@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Go get those weird looking white ones from an Asian grocery store, they look like styrofoam cylinders with carved pointed tops. Use a butcher’s knife to chop the point off. Insert straw and long spoon to carve the natural jell-o out with. Thank me later.
mrsemi@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
[deleted]Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
Processed by extracting the liquid from the pulp of the coconut…
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Rothe@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Yeah, I know it is a joke and all, but coconuts doesn’t have hairs or contain milk, so that particular example doesn’t undermine “morphology-based phylogeny” at all.
marcos@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
On related news, the salmon fish is not salmon color… And beef comes in larger packages on nature.
grue@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
stray@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
Maybe we just disagree on what color “salmon” is, but the meat is what I would call that color. They’re like flamingos in that they take on pigment from their diet. For this reason, farmed salmon will not be “salmon” color unless their diet has been supplemented with the pigment.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
that looks underripe to me
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(from researchgate), Maturity stages of coconut: a) young; b) early ripening; c) ripeameancow@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
From experience: all stages of a coconut are distinct, edible and used for different dishes, treats, condiments and ingredients.
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Underripe is when it’s nice and full of water. Best when thirsty. Dry and ripe, best when hungry.
ameancow@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I got to travel Southeast Asia for a time, it’s atrocious how much we’re missing out on in the USA.
Even the really fresh coconuts here just don’t compare to the ones you get fresh off a tree. It’s unreal.
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
I lived in the US Virgin Islands as a kid. Our back yard had a seemingly endless supply of mangoes, bananas, avocado, lime, oranges (the real stuff, not the engineered shit we eat in the mainland), grapefruit, bread fruit, acerola, plantains, and pigeon peas. It wasn’t even that big a yard. Shit just grows.
icelimit@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Have you tried a papaya growing off the roadside?
chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
They exist in FL and I’ve climbed trees to get em. I like em when they’re yellow. Delicious coconut water and basically a coconut “jelly” lining. I also lived in the Caribbean my early life (2-7) so had a lot down there too, plus fresh sugarcane, guava, mangoes, and a thing we called a plum but was a small tree fruit that I also loved yellow ripeness. After a quick Google evidently called a June Plum or a hog plum. Used to eat em straight from the tree.
thebardingreen@lemmy.starlightkel.xyz 2 weeks ago
Coconuts are tropical! This is temperate zone!
flora_explora@beehaw.org 2 weeks ago
How is this the temperate zone?? You know how the internet works?
Nikls94@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
BEHOLD! THE MAMMAL! IT GIVES MILK AND HAS HAIR!
(And has venomous claws, lays eggs, has electroreceptors, glows under UV, has 10 sex chromosomes, genetically it’s a mix of reptiles and mammals…)
BilSabab@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
sounds like average republican
buttnugget@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Please do not insult the platypus like that!
TheThrillOfTime@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Proof that God is fucking with us
Nikls94@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I tell you it’s just an Echidna that made love to a Lizard and that’s how we got the Platypus.
Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club 2 weeks ago
credo@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Some spiders also produce milk.
Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club 2 weeks ago
So they are coconuts.
lath@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Hmm… I am a quack, therefore I duck?
leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Actually, it’s about the teeth.
Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club 2 weeks ago
Yes, wiki/Vagina_dentata.
artifex@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m a little sad that everyone’s focused on the coconut and missing the reference to the naked man who lives in a barell trolling the father of western philosophy.
AntEater@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
If it doesn’t have a tail, it’s not a monkey, even if it has a monkey kind of shape.
Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Apes are a kind of monkey
AntEater@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
Not if they don’t have a tail.
icelimit@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
I think a rabbit would be more accurate. Seeing as how a chicken has a beak. Also something cloaca
rapchee@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
in ancient greece, they asked a philosopher, “what is a man?”. he said “a featherless, bipedal creature”. and then diogenes entered the scene
Friendlybirdseggs@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Horror time youtu.be/F2E3qA4Vx_A
fullsquare@awful.systems 2 weeks ago
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