Form

Yeah, I know that the doodles usually land on the other blog (see Other Blog on the sidebar if you're curious. I'm too lazy to link today). There's a roundabout reason why this one is here instead, however, and I may even eventually get to it. First, though:

It's Jimsonweed, which gets the more highfalutin' name of Angel Trumpet when it's planted in a garden. The flowers are pretty. The plant? Poisonous and strongly (and dangerously) hallucinogenic. Only the extremely stupid would attempt it. I hope, at least.

The drawing took me about fifteen minutes. I was aiming for just line without shading, and I was also trying for speed. Not too bad, all things considered, but I still need to work on being a bit freer with the pen.

Hmm. The word freer looks just plain wrong typed out, you know?

The reason I chose that particular plant as today's subject was the shape. The form. A good, strong form that leads to some easy inferences about the plant's possible pollinators.

Ok, ok, only if you happen to be a nerd biologist, I suppose.

As a nerd biologist (and in general, really), I tend to get caught up in forms. You see, the neat thing about the forms of living things that haven't been completely mucked about with by being overbred by humans to look different is that shapes can tell you a lot about what those living things do. In the case of plants, how they pollinate or keep from being overgrazed. In the case of animals, how they live their lives. What they eat, what they're hunted by, what they have to do to make more animals... it's all there in the forms. If you know something about forms and how they work, you can make some pretty good educated guesses about any living thing's function in the ecosystem. Or the world, come to it. Yes, boys and girls, a bit of knowledge of comparative anatomy can be an important step in trying to understand how the world works.

Which leads me to dissection.





Yes, seriously.

I have a zoology degree, which can be partially translated as: I've cut up a fair number of dead things in my time. Now, some of you will be completely grossed out by that. Ok, I get how people could feel that way. Some of you, though, will be completely offended instead. Some of you may be offended to the point where you'd feel like dousing me with red paint, calling me a murderer, and asking me how I can reconcile the deaths of those animals with the study of life that my mammalian ecology background supposedly promotes.

I don't have a lot of respect for that kind of knee-jerk reaction, to be honest. And I could sit here and patiently explain why, but if you're the type who has that reaction it's not going to make a bit of difference anyway, so I don't think I'll bother wasting my time or yours. I will say this, however:

• If you want to try to save something, you have to try to understand it. Otherwise you're just going off half-cocked and you may do more harm than good.
• Sometimes to understand things, you have to dig deeper than you might expect. And sometimes you have to study aspects that, on the surface, may seem to have little relation to the main topic. That type of study can get messy, but without it you can't move any further. Example? Well, how do you suppose that scientists figured out our pets' nutritional needs so that we could go to the store and buy properly balanced foods for them? Years ago a pet cat wasn't expected to live more than ten years (if that). Scientists discovered that cats couldn't produce an essential nutrient that most mammals make for themselves. Cats depend on their prey for it instead. Add the nutrient to the food; cats are suddenly living longer, healthier lives. But you can bet that the discovery itself didn't come from simply offering cats a bunch of different foods and seeing which ones they liked better. Oh, and google taurine if you think that I'm making this up.
• To understand forms, how they work, and their importance, there is never going to be a true substitute for hands-on discovery of the real thing. I can tell you first-hand that even the best scientific illustrations can never show you the real life view. The worst ones can be dangerously misleading. Would you really want a surgeon who'd only ever looked at pictures and simulations and had never touched a cadaver?

Now, having said that (and this is all just to get something out of my system. I got really annoyed by a particular television a--hole the other day. More annoyed than I should have, I know, but ignorance shouted loudly is one of my huge pet peeves in life), do I think that every high school student should be up to his or her elbows in formalin and pickled guts? Hell, no. I did dissections in high school biology like a lot of you did, and it was a massive waste of time. Oh yeah, it was interesting for me, but I could have got the same thing from watching a decent video or (nowadays) using a good computer simulation. I don't believe that anyone who isn't going on to further studies in biology has any reason to need to cut up a fetal pig, or even an earthworm for that matter. From my memories of Biology 10, dissection days were mostly just an excuse for teenage girls to act attractively squeamish for the boys, and for teenage boys to tease each other with assorted parts of dead animals. Even for those of us who were interested in the actual subject, the specimens and resources usually weren't good enough to get much out of, and the shrieking and giggling from the less-interested students was frustrating.

I'd almost go along with the paint-throwers when it comes to needless dissection in schools. Almost. I have no use for PETA and their overly-hysterical imitators for many other reasons that I won't go into now (a girl's gotta have lunch at some point, after all),  so I can't in the end condone screaming hissy fits from those types for anything.

And with that...

um...

This actually took a more preachy turn than I intended, especially since it started with a harmless drawing of a flower. Sorry about that. Still... aren't you glad I chose not to do a drawing of a half-dissected frog instead? I'll admit, I did consider it. And it's not like it would have been the first time I'd drawn a dissection, after all.

My life has been a bit odd? I'd give you that one, I guess.