I notice that every single thing the article talks about is cellular or molecular biology, which I did immediately like while in high school for reasons mentioned. But the reason why I don't actually like biology is the entire other parts of it, namely taxonomy and environmental biology. I just couldn't care about it. I don't want to know how to differentiate between ants based on how many antennas they have, or what this biome actually is based on percentage of pine trees there are. And I suspect lots of the time, when people talked about biology they actually talked about this because this is what's actually taught in elementary and middle school where impressions are formed. And this is what Feynmann refers to as "stamp collecting".
To me, birding always seemed to be the worst kind of Feynman's stamp collecting. But there's so much more beauty and joy hidden in knowing what lives around you in detail; your connection with your surroundings will grow deep.
To quote:
>So much more of the natural world feels close and accessible now. When I started birding, I remember thinking that I’d never see most of the species in my field guide. Sure, backyard birds like robins and western bluebirds would be easy, but not black skimmers or peregrine falcons or loggerhead shrikes. I had internalized the idea of nature as distant and remote — the province of nature documentaries and far-flung vacations. But in the past six months, I’ve seen soaring golden eagles, heard duetting great horned owls, watched dancing sandhill cranes and marveled at diving Pacific loons, all within an hour of my house. “I’ll never see that” has turned into “Where can I find that?”
Seeing biology in light of processes on (evolutionary, developmental, ecological) timescales is one of the 2-3 realizations that made biology interesting for me.
You're doing to ecology exactly what the author complains teachers are doing to molecular biology.
Learning about molecular biology often begins with memorising what the cell is made of. I understand that many students find this dry and tedious. But it is in a way necessary, because only once you have this foundational knowledge can you go on to begin to understand the amazing complexity of how it all actually works.
Ecology is similar. Yes, taxonomy can be a drag (certainly in high school, or even early college). But you need to learn something about what's out there before you can start to think about, and wonder at, how it works. Ecology is an amazing subject, as complex and intricate as anything in molecular biology. (In a way, it's even more cryptic than the latter, because most of the experiments can't be done in a lab.) The problem is that most people have no clue what's out there, and so they never see the beauty that surrounds them, or realise the wonderful web of life playing out all around them.
Come for a walk with me through the woods, and let me tell you something about how ants grow their own food, or go to war with a neighbouring tribe, or treat their wounded with antibiotics. Or let's take a look at a dead tree, and see how the fungus has softened the wood, how beetles have burrowed through it, how they in turn attract woodpeckers, whose holes are then re-used by owls.
Due respect to Feynman as a physicist, but he had no clue about ecology. We are not collecting stamps, we are collecting the stories they tell - stories you'll never hear if you don't look at a few stamps first...
