Research into Hawaii's Recent Cypraea
| | "Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science, consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus." | |
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Michael Chrichton
The Case For Skepticism On Global Warming
speaking at The National Press Club, Wash., D.C., Jan. 25, 2005
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Each of the indigenous Cypraea of the Hawaiian Islands is an enigma––and each has a riddle for its origin. How did they come to be the animals that we find today in the waters of these geologically-young islands? Which species were their forebearers? How did those earlier animals contribute to the appearance of the Hawaiian cowry shells that now fill our collections––and our sense of wonder? What processes might have created these marvelous cowries: the geology, the ocean, the ethos, the genetics?
Possible answers to these fundamental questions are what this area of cowrys.org will be exploring. Exact answers can hardly be expected; those are rare except in the most quantitative of sciences. When researchers undertake studies in a domain where the evidence is mostly missing––much of Hawaii's fossil record lies in the depths of the Pacific, crumbled and pulverized in massive subsea slumps and landslides as the outer flanks of some of its volcanos sank or slid away—these workers seek to describe a credible series of events, supported by knowledge and experience related to the subject in question. The key words there are “credible,” “knowledge,” and “experience.” What a person may (or may not) find credible will depend on their existing knowledge and experiences.
In many instances, researchers (including this one) are experiencing things that few others––perhaps no others––have, and it can be difficult to effectively communicate the new ideas arising from these happenings. The pathways to such yet-to-be-experienced insights, surmises and relationships––which researchers want to share––will almost always present an occasional gap in the experience or knowledge of newcomers. It is a researcher's job to try to bridge that span, making more wonders available.
Some of the paths to be explored are mentioned in the first paragraph of this page and the most obvious way to begin is... with what we have––some truly amazing cowry shells. Thus some pages will closely examine several of Hawaii's more available (to this researcher, anyway) cypraeid species while some will review the physical events and records of Hawaii's past. Others will show how the current stock of Hawaiian cowries might well have sprung from species living in other areas of the Pacific.
This area will always be a work-in-progress. The list of choices below will grow longer as research continues. Check it regularly...
