Dr. Lowman’s latest Nature’s Secrets column in newsobserver.com:
Olympians aim for gold medals; pro football teams strive to win the Super Bowl; actors aspire for Oscars. But what are the metrics of success for natural scientists? They are often defined as personal “eureka moments” after decades of field work, including the discovery of a new species, unearthing a new fossil, or identifying a pollinator after years of treetop observation.
Did Darwin jump for joy when he first saw the Galapagos finches? Did Rachel Carson take time out to drink champagne when she figured out the link between pesticides and declining songbirds?
In natural sciences, most discoveries are not typically celebratory – like the outcome of a Super Bowl – but require thousands of hours of data collection to produce a result – often defined as 90 percent perspiration and 10 percent inspiration.
