I'm sure some of you are familiar with the concept of a "to do list." For those who are not, it's a list, either actual or existing only in the mind, consisting of things one needs to do. For example, Jimmy Buffett's to do list might look like this:



Here you see that Jimmy has listed tasks in the order necessary for the completion of certain other tasks. For example, he needs to get guitar strings before he can tune his guitar. And while he could lure the brown girl into his mansion earlier, say, after writing the silly lyrics, he seems to think it would be better to get the saccharine song taken care of first.

This technique is called prioritization, and apparently it does not exist in the world of science. To wit, the study of whether lobsters can feel pain.

It's not that I misunderstand the stakes. On one side of the issue is the fishing industry, Maine's tourism board, and restaurants like Red Lobster. On the other is anyone with an interest, cheritable or otherwise, in putting a stop to the lobstercaust -- animal rights organizations, makers of imitation lobster and crabmeat, and perhaps the lobsters themselves. Lobsters generate billions of dollars every year, and the discovery that the high pitched whistle emitted as one is dunked into a pot of boiling water with salt and lemon is actually a shriek of agony could literally cut that by as much as five percent.

It's just that, were I in charge of science's to do list, I might push the lobster thing down a little bit. Below cancer, for example, and making fusion work as a power source.


Feelin' no pain.

Analogcabin @ 9:51 AM
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