Reflection from eDNA overview
First of all, thank you for the papers that were selected for this first week together. The Cristescu and Hebert paper will be a really great reference and foundational resource that I feel like I’ll be able to come back to again and again. Although you mentioned that it’s already out of date and missing some information since it was written in 2018, I think it should be a paper that anyone coming into this program should read, especially if they’re a bit of a newbie to eDNA all together. Further, it provides additional foundational references that have already led me to some new insights relating to my work.
The Tallbear paper was more of an emotional read. Having some background in social science, the jargon was not such an issue for me. I also think this is a paper, or a paper highlighting a similar topic, that anyone doing work with genetics in any capacity should read. It is easy to get wrapped up in the process of doing science which can sometimes prevent us from thinking about what science is doing on a broader scale. This paper supports my feelings of thinking about the human side of what our science means…WHO can it impact, HOW can it impact them, and WHAT does it mean for their lives? These are the questions that I often come back to. I read Tallbear first, which put me in an emotional place to read Cristescu and Hebert. I don’t know if that influenced how I absorbed the information, but I now wonder if I would interpret Tallbear differently if I read it second. A question I’ll never know the answer to! But, that might be an interesting little experiment in the future…do perceptions change based on the order of the information? Hmmmmmmm…..