Wednesday 4 August 2010

Plenty more fish in the sea

With the announcement this week that scientists had announced the number of species in the oceans (about 230,000, if you're interested) there was only ever going to be one question on my mind.

How can they know?

(Interior. Daytime. A laboratory bench. Scientist in white coat is looking at samples and muttering under his breath.)

Scientist: Seventy two thousand, one hundred and twelve.

(He takes the next sample from a nearby fish tank).

Scientist: Seventy two thousand, one hundred and thirteen.

(A colleague walks past and stops at the bench).

Colleague: Hey Martin, what's up?

Scientist: (muttering quickly) Seventy two thousand, one hundred and thirteen, seventy two thousand, one hundred and thirteen, seventy two thou...oh, hey Roy, how's it going?

Colleague: Good, good, thanks. I see you're on the Indonesian Parrot Fish. How's that working for you?

Scientist: Seventy two thousand, one hundred and thirteen, seventy two thousand, one hundred and thirteen. (Looks up) Not too bad. It's getting a little tricky determining the specific species though.

Colleague: What do you mean?

Scientist: (absent-mindedly) Seventy two thousand, one hundred and thirteen, seventy two thousand, one hundred and thirteen. Well, you see, you've got your common-or-garden Indonesian Parrot Fish, your Long-Nosed Indonesian Parrot Fish, there's the Spotted Greater Indonesian Parrot Fish, the Spotted Lesser Indonesian Parrot Fish. It can be a little tricky telling the difference.

Colleague: To say nothing of the Short-Nosed Spotted Indonesian Parrot Fish.

Scientist: Seventy two thousand, one hundred and thirteen, seventy two thousand, one hundred and thirteen. Indeed.

Colleague: Martin?

Scientist: What? Seventy two thousand, one hundred and thirteen, seventy two thousand, one hundred and thirteen....

Colleague: Do you ever wonder if what we're doing here is a colossal waste of time?

Scientist: (Looks up again) What do you mean?

Colleague: I mean, it's not exactly going to add to the general happiness of the human species, is it? Counting the species, telling the difference between the various - and interminably dull - variations of Indonesian Parrot Fish. Why bother?

Scientist: Well, I suppose...

Colleague: Come on Martin. You know very well that for every species we find, there will be abother four or so we're never going to be able to count. You might as well make up a number. No-one's going to know.

Scientist: Well, yes, but we're supposed to be scientists, Roy. We're marine biologists. We can't go making things up. Otherwise we might as well be economists.

Colleague: When we retire and look back upon our professional lives, what will we be able to say we've done? What will we tell our grandchildren? That we were pretty up to speed with North Atlantic Cod? Sorry, Martin, that's not what I want to be remembed for.

(Colleague walks off).

Scientist: Hmmm. Now, where was I? Oh bugger.

(He sighs deeply, and walks over to a large tank marked "Haddock").

Scientist: One, two, three.....

1 comment:

greeneggsandtam said...

Might as well be economists. Beautiful!

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