2986: Every Scientific Field

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Every Scientific Field

Title text: Conveniently for everyone, it turns out that dark energy is produced by subterranean parasitoid wasps.

Explanation

Randall uses this pie chart to show that more than 95% of scientific topics are actually unknown to the general public, and he has listed three topics within the larger fields of cosmology, microbiology, and entomology as examples of obscure but consequential areas of research:

• "Dark energy" is the term used for the unknown cause of the accelerating expansion of the universe. It behaves like energy; if it is an energy, it contributes 68% of the total energy in the present-day observable universe.
• The deep biosphere resides below the first few meters of the ground down to at least 10 and 21 km below the continental and sea surfaces respectively. The subsurface accounts for about 90% of the biomass across two of the three domains of life, Archaea and Bacteria.
• Parasitoid wasps lay their eggs on or in the bodies of other arthropods, sooner or later causing the death of these hosts. They are a huge group, with the subgroup of Chalcidoidea alone comprising an estimated 500,000 species.

The three categories listed in the comic are not random examples of obscure-sounding scientific knowledge; the terms themselves each have a subtle and clever double meaning for what counts as "obscure" knowledge:

• The adjective "dark" can also describe a situation notable for a paucity of knowledge, as in the "dark ages" or the "dark web", just like the "dark energy" form of energy is little known by the layperson.
• The adjective "subsurface" connotes a world below the surface, just as laypeople are unaware of the world of biomass below the everyday surface of common knowledge. It's a similar metaphor to phrases like "sub rosa" — literally "under the rose" — and “undercover,” which refer to actions done in secret.
• Parasitoid wasps act covertly; their larvae can grow inside an insect — like a caterpillar — secretly, with no clear indication that the innards of the caterpillar are being slowly replaced with a wasp larva, similar to the hidden nature of this giant class of insects to the common layperson.

The title text jokingly wraps these three examples together.

Evidence for this phenomenon in science news

According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, nearly 3 million scientific research papers were published in 2022, the latest year for which numbers are conveniently available. A tiny percentage of these studies find their way to "general news" outlets, which, according to a 2017 report by the Pew Charitable Trust, are the principal sources of science news for non-scientists. According to that same report, "general news" sources preferentially cover scientific research findings that make "newsworthy" discoveries, are "weird", or have "human interest" dimensions such as disagreements among celebrity scientists. There is also a bias towards certain topics, such as health and medicine. Consequently, vast domains of "science space" go unreported by general news, and hence are unknown to the general public.

Transcript

[A pie chart, with a very slim section in the upper left is shown. Both the thin section and the rest are labeled with lines going from label to the sections. Above this is a large header:]

The makeup of every scientific field:

Thin section: Everything you've heard of

Large section: Some obscure-sounding category like "Subsurface microbes" or "Dark energy" or "Parasitoid wasps"

Trivia

• This is a rare Tuesday comic.
  • Perhaps Randall was busy on Monday, September 16 and didn't get around to posting.
  • Sometimes when this happens, the xkcd archive would still list the normal date. But in this case the archive actually shows 2024-09-17, the Tuesday it was released.

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Discussion

My reading of the comic is completely opposite to the current explanation. Rather than the large section being what 'a disproportionate amount of time is spent on', it's the small section, which is why we've heard of that stuff. To me, the large section represents the bulk of what is there to be studied, but is relatively poorly understood, so the point of the comic is emphasising how little we actually know about stuff in relation to what there is to be known. 172.70.160.136 11:16, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I didn't like the word 'disproportionate' either, because to me it sounded like an accusation of too much time being spent in the wrong branch, which is not what Randall is saying. I reworded and fleshed out the description. Better now? 172.70.111.167 11:38, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with "poorly understood" being the central issue, though, rather the branches the general public finds fascinating are often not the scientificially dominating ones. Wasps laying eggs in other insects isn't "poorly understood" at all. It's just that cute baby elephants or pandas draw huge crowds in zoos, whereas 'icky' wasps don't. And e.g. a gyroscope makes for great YouTube videos, but it's no longer a subject of fundamental physics research. 162.158.154.238 13:04, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I can offer anecdotal evidence that, yes, I would have been perfectly happy not knowing there are more than half a million different kinds of parasitic wasp 162.158.63.6 13:38, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I think you've misunderstood what I meant by 'poorly understood', though. The point was that there are vast amounts of stuff to know about these subjects, and we have, necessarily, only scratched the surface of that, so in a relative sense, it's poorly understood compared to what we could potentially understand about it. Yes, the general principle of wasps parasitising other organisms is understood, but we don't know all the specifics of every single case (not least because of the vast numbers of species we haven't even identified yet).172.70.85.18 11:10, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

It's not really a matter of understanding, it's whether most of the public has even heard of it and knows that scientists are studying it. Randall's point is that most of what scientists study doesn't get much mention in the mainstream press and lay people don't know about it. Barmar (talk) 14:27, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with "dark energy" being a no-interest-for-the-broad-public theme. 172.71.160.70 08:16, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

This stupid site is malfunctioning.

Hi chat. I'm the infamous #FreePalestine "troll". I would go into another rant, but there is a more pressing matter on our hands here. Whenever I try to access this site, I frequently encounter some "technical difficulties" message, claiming that I can't access the database. It occurs both on the school computers and my own device, so it's probably server-side. Can someone get to the bottom of this? Cheers! 141.101.105.48 19:35, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

This has been happening to me too. Reloading the tab almost always fixes it, but it’s still annoying nonetheless. Trogdor147 (talk) 23:49, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

seems to have been fixed now :) 162.158.33.237 07:42, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Can we make it so that it it only does this for trolls and vandals?172.69.195.27 08:12, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Vunny, I zougt Mossad already did zis :-) 172.71.160.70 08:16, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Hmmm. "Hi, I am a troll..." What a strange claim. Does your point benefit from saying that? (Even "I'm the person that others consider to be a troll"?) Friendly advice: Under the remit of making a serious and valid observation, you can remain undistinguished behind your latest IP 'identity', because we don't care if you're a first-time poster or a decades-long contributor in this case.

(As a decade-and-a-bit contributor, if you'll take my word for it, I had of course noticed this occasionally recurring issue had started again but had decided that (if it is sortable) then it didn't need my input to sort.)

I do care about you not trolling, of course, but it's primarily because you say you're the one (with as little reason to take that as true) that now associate you with it. It doesn't add any value, shall we say? And probably neither does this reaction, but that's also down to your decision to make it a point of information, and having no other way to make my worldview known to you privately... 172.69.195.231 09:37, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

First off, if the errors stop you from trolling, then that’s great! I think that most of us have been experiencing the errors you’re mentioning. There’s a little discussion on the Technical Community Portal, but unless Davidy22 or Jeff respond to my pleas for help, there’s nothing that can really be done, as they are the only admins that have access to poke around the server. In addition, Jeff, if you’re reading this, we REALLY need new ‘crats, as otherwise nobody can be promoted to admin. I highly recommend Kynde, as he’s the only active admin on this site. 42.book.addict (talk) 17:01, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

No next button

Why is the next button missing? Shouldn't someone add it back in or something? 172.69.0.170 08:04, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

99%?

I don't see where the comic is mentioning 99%. To me the pie chart seems to indicate a slice of 5 to 10%. --172.71.172.120 10:07, 20 September 2024 (UTC)