One of the most influential papers from my former career described the ‘River Continuum Concept’. Though quite basic, this paper revolutionized how we thought about streams and rivers. Specifically how freshwater systems changed from their springs where they began to the oceans into which they drained. This paper introduced me…
Tag: thinking
Using Common Sense to Win at Life
Do you remember common sense? That people just kinda know stuff. What’s right and what’s wrong. Do you remember Common Sense? The document by Thomas Paine that was a precursor to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution? The first thing is something we think everybody we agree with has,…
What Freedom Means to Me
The fourth of July makes me ashamed. I’m ashamed of myself because I can’t seem to match the patriotism that surrounds me. In the USA, people get almost spiritual about their fireworks, hot dogs, and freedom worship. Behind all of this, for me, is a whole lot of weirdness. The…
Growing Smaller is a Worthy Goal (Part 1)
I used to own a brewery. In our rural location and with our small customer pool, we struggled to be profitable. My partners and I disagreed about how to best approach profitability. One had an MBA and swore by the neo-capitalist, Econ 101 approach to maximizing revenues. Following this popular approach,…
Systems Thinking
While this is not a definitive treatise on Systems Thinking, I wanted to talk a bit about this topic as it is relevant to many of my posts. People tell me that out-of-the-box thinking is atypical. Most people seem to think of the world in simplified, or at least minimized…
The Flow-Based Inquiry Approach
The KEW Acid Tests ask how Nature can inform the big questions humans ask. “Why are we here?”, “Who am I?”, and “What is our purpose” have puzzled humans for years – perhaps millennia. In the past 4,000 years or so, we have employed philosophy, religion, and science as mechanisms…
The DNA Acid Test: The Problem and The Questions
What is the question!!!???? Say you are studying the effectiveness of a vaccine against some pathogen. What is the question? Too many times we get wrapped up in the specifics. The details. The minutia. We forget WHY we are doing this in the first place. In this case, I would…
Beyond Science
Before I ‘retired’ to stay home with my kids I was an academic research scientist. I taught classes, advised students, and led a research lab. I was pretty successful. The only reason I share that is to say I feel like I’ve earned the right to explain what science is,…