Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!iuvax!bionet!bionet-20.bio.net!Kristofferson
From: Kristofferson@BIONET-20.BIO.NET (David Kristofferson)
Newsgroups: bionet.general
Subject: The Art of Starting Discussions
Message-ID: <12494445366.14.KRISTOFFERSON@BIONET-20.BIO.NET>
Date: 16 May 89 12:38:16 GMT
References: <8905161052.AA27822@net.bio.net>
Sender: daemon@NET.BIO.NET
Lines: 57


Simon et al.,

	Getting a discussion going on a scientific newsgroup in
biology still seems to be something of a novel art form and I think
that people are still groping here.  Nonetheless I am very encouraged
by the spirit that is being shown in the POPULATION-BIOLOGY group
which is the first one created on BIOSCI as a result of a vote of the
community.

	I am not a population biologist, so I can't contribute topics,
but I do have a simple question to ask.  I used to work in the
cytoskeleton field, and there were always papers coming out with which
we disagreed (hopefully not just because we were a disagreeable lot
8-)!!).  At meetings we would often engage in discussions to obtain
more details of experimental techniques which might have been
inadequately explained, etc., so as to evaluate better the
interpretations of results.  I can understand people's reluctance to
give away their "hot ideas," but there always still seemed to be
enough to talk about at meetings without giving everything away.

	Aren't there similar concerns in population biology (or in
other scientific interest groups on BIOSCI)?  Doesn't anyone out there
have any questions concerning published research?  When approaching an
electronic newsgroup, just pretend that you actually at a professional
meeting of your colleagues.  If just a few people so "pretend," pretty
soon the discussion will start rolling along, more people will join
in, and, in fact, there will no longer be a need for pretense as you
will have formed your own meeting on an international scale.  All of
this is possible without ever having left your lab!  

	The technique has worked in other fields.  For example, I
*first* heard of the "cold fusion" controversy on sci.chem, a newly
formed USENET group, before it hit the national press.  Later, news
accounts related how the "modern miracle" of FAX machines was being
used to pass preprints around the world.  My reaction to that was
"What a quaint way of disseminating information, one telephone call
and lots of paper per recipient!"  [FAX still has the important
advantage of being able to handle graphics (which are not impossible
in e-mail systems), but FAX can not come close to comparing to e-mail
in speed and cost of distribution.  If the manuscript contains
computer-readable data FAX is also at a disadvantage.]  

	The bottom line is that these new forms of communication are
slowly pervading the scientific community.  If chemists and other
groups can use them, there is no reason why biologists can't get on
the ball too.  Hope this results in something other than passive
reading of this message!

				Sincerely,

				Dave Kristofferson
				BIONET Resource Manager

				kristofferson@bionet-20.bio.net

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