Painting Our Way Out of a Corner

摘要

Each time I present on invasive pests, no matter which species is topical, I begin with a slide of Chicken Little, a character who fomented mass hysteria by convincing the other animals the sky was falling. It's usually good for a chuckle. InevitablyI then proceed to unload a barrage of science on the heads of my poor audience, displaying bar graphs, pie charts, alarming statistics, and full-color photos of mayhem wrought by the particular pest of interest. There's a final slide that shows the position of the sky (up), with arrows in the direction of gravitational pull (down) at 9.8 m/s/s, clear proof that the sky is indeed falling. For some reason, fewer people laugh at the end. Go figure.