My Green Life

As I am thinking more and more about my pursuit of attending grad school, I have become increasingly aware that I need to become more aware of the marine biology research being conducted currently. In an effort to do so, I have found it difficult to find articles available on-line that I am able view without paying hefty subscription costs. However, I did find one site (and will be looking to highlight others in the future) that contains open access to several scholarly journals. After listening to multiple harangues by a computer programmer regarding the importance of open source programming as a way to collaborate and access a greater source of information, I now have a brand new appreciation for the ability to access other scholar’s works for free. I found one article from an open source journal of particular interest.

The article is titled The short-term impact of dolphin-watching on the behaviour of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in western Australia. The focus of this paper was to determine whether or not the presence of dolphin-watching tour boats influences the behavior of dolphins. For a “control”, an investigator boat was sent out to note the dolphins’ behavior under “normal” circumstances. The scientists then sent an observation boat out with the dolphin-watching tour boat to determine whether dolphins acted differently with the tour boat present.  After reading the paper, I was reminded of the concept in quantum physics where a photon acts like a particle when an observer is present, and it acts like a wave when an observer is not present. The simple presence of an observer greatly influences how a photon acts. Which made me question, “Does simply the presence of an observer in a scientific experiment ever alter the intended results?” Now, in this case, it was found that the dolphins’ behavior was altered when the tour boat was present vs. when it was not present. But, if the presence of an observer affects the results of an experiment on a microscopic level, could it also affect the results on a macroscopic level as well? If there had been no observer boat present, would the behavior be altered even more significantly? The dolphins’ behavior was, most likely, affected minimally by the observer boat’s presence, but it is a factor to consider. More than anything, this article made me recognize the importance of making connections and coming up with the questions that will take an observation deeper.