As a (micro)biologist, I totally support that notion. Biology is, indeed, chemistry, which is in turn physics, which is in turn mathematics.

The problem is, good freaking luck simulating biological processes on a physical level. We do biology and not physics, because it's a reasonable shortcut we have to make to work on what's important without waiting another millenia for a decent enough physical simulation.

Oh, we do

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_bovine_serum

reminds me of this copypasta

As someone who works on a big robotic mingun for the Navy you would not BELIEVE how close to home the Adeptus Mechanicus hits for me. For starters we have written procures that need to be followed to the letter like a ritual and deviating from it at all, especially during a spot check can get you in serious trouble.. Technicians are also really goddamned superstitious and for good reason. If you accidentally cut yourself on the equipment, it will start to work as if it's accepted your blood sacrifice. The mounts also all have names and their own personalities. If you do anything that displeases the machine spirit's they will not work. My favorite story I was told by one of my instructors in school was the time a bunch of Aegis techs sacrificed a live chicken to their their radar and sealed its bones inside a metal box and attached it to the radar console, after which it started working flawlessly. That is until the CO came by and saw this box stuck to it and ordered it be taken down. THE MOMENT it was taken down, the radar cut off and REFUSED to work. After countless man hours of troubleshooting this thing and finding nothing wrong, they have to fly a tech rep out to figure out what the hells the matter with this thing. They tell him what happened and his response? He puts the box back on the console becuase he knows what sort of black magic runs this equipment and lo and behold it starts working again. Whoever originally made the Machine Cult got it spot on what kind of culture a bunch of technicians would develop if left on their own for a millenia

There's a computer working on it right now. Let's hope it doesn't get destroyed for some dumb reason before it is done.

Sounds about right for engineering nerds. I was a deckie and y'all were basically wizards as far as I was concerned

Are you an Ork from Warhammer 40k? LMAO

i remember reading recently that it was discovered that a lot of studies regarding microplastics are likely wrong. because nitrile gloves used to operate in the laboratory gives off microplastics, so there is basically no uncontaminated samples.

so, always check your presumably "clean" samples too!

I'm feeling pretty shitty that they demolished my house to build a fucking bypass

there is a chemical in the ink seeping into the container

in my case the size of the system was so small they didn't have that excuse, yet they were only ever able to get correct results after experimental data was handed over to them, zero predictive power, useless

it will vary, just after distillation (or RO/ion exchange) it should be closer to 7 then it goes down as carbon dioxide gets absorbed. that's why it's buffered everywhere where it matters

i heard a story about varnish factory that failed quality checks after one old guy got fired, he was a smoker and used to spit in the main reactor. some enzyme from saliva made it shinier

You might, or might not be surprised to hear I tested for variables like that regularly lol.

You can get magnetic field viewing film which would make checking for magnetism easy without harming the plastic animal

thank you, hope your community appreciates all that work!

You bet there's a story about a load-bearing sticker in IT circles.

Oh, no I meant an ugly worm as opposed to the first one to test if an ugly worm does better or worse. The first one was pretty sexy.

They put up a notice, it's not our fault you haven't been by the regional office

Wow, thanks for the answer. GIS was my next guess lol. Sounds like a pretty interesting job, lots of variety. Mind sharing what you have a degree in?

The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy

GIS and Public Administration.

Plus the time it takes to look at it, as well as other effects on the people involved.

Especially when a sudden absence happens.

I am very happy to be able to share the classic MAGIC / MORE MAGIC story here

No, they’re clearly Imperial.

"damn straight!"

Wait, now HR wants to speak with me again, about the possibility of existence of non-straight worms (or perhaps it's non-damned ones?:-P).

Would? I'm pretty sure half of them start their day with a ritualistic dance and sacrifice

said it would be easy

Ah, the innocence of inexperience. (Giving them the benefit of the doubt of course. )

I work on old undocumented c/c++ spaghetti code for embedded systems. In multiple planning meetings I have gotten to use lines like "this looks like a single character change but testing it makes me really nervous" and have gotten zero pushback or raised eyebrows.

It's usually a few laughs and often another engineer or our manager will chime in to agree with me and describe some more of the context or whatever, lol.

I wonder if many superstitions in rational secular people could just be bad terminology for behavior that can have some good reasons behind it.

One is using intuition to access your brain power in a way that's different than conscious thought and verbal reasoning. For me at least, when I have spent months and even years troubleshooting or upgrading different parts of a system, I develop an intuition where I can track down certain types of issues really quickly or with very limited information.

There are often things that, in the wise words of Mr. Plinkett, you didn't notice -- but your brain did.

Second, and most important, is the ubiquitous one-two punch that there are always hidden variables and that they are by definition not easy to predict.

I have had my time wasted by way dumber and more seemingly random things than that worm drawing. I'm not a biologist but I could still speculate a bunch of potential reasons that, while wrong, would still be way more predictable than actual issues I've dealt with at work and home.

I can also predict that in that situation I would absolutely keep doing the drawings. My line of reasoning here applies to many other situations as well: The world is complicated. There could be a helpful effect from some part of the drawing process, or there could be no effect, OR there could be some crazy interaction of 3 different variables. Don't change anything, finish the current task, then decide if figuring out the cause & effect is worth doing next. (some of that also comes from my internal voice tasked with keeping my adhd in check)

Regarding the effect of worm drawings on the lifespan on microorganisms: a systematic analysis.

I knew somebody who kept a can of pig brains on their ephys rig bc their mentor had always done the same to get their rig working and passed the tradition on to several mentees.

Idk how it worked for the other mentees but it didn't seem to bring much luck to that rig.

IDK if they make our equipment run better, but productivity skyrocketed, almost as if employees that aren't completely miserable work better.

Or alternatively the worm drawing adds something to the container not being controlled for, like putting pressure on it causes it to change shape slightly that makes it more beneficial for some reason. I fix up old electronics so I am damned aware that some of my rituals are arbitrary on paper but do some back end shit.

6×7=

or you know... use a magnet.

A magnet would also find metal