this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2024
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Nominative Determinism

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Nominative determinism is the hypothesis that people tend to gravitate towards areas of work that fit their names. The term was first used in the magazine New Scientist in 1994, after the magazine's humorous "Feedback" column noted several studies carried out by researchers with remarkably fitting surnames. These included a book on polar explorations by Daniel Snowman and an article on urology by researchers named Splatt and Weedon. These and other examples led to light-hearted speculation that some sort of psychological effect was at work.

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“There are still so many things we don’t know about [a milky sea] beyond that it must be caused by bacteria,” says Steven Haddock, a marine biologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, Calif., who collaborates with Hudson on milky seas research. “What are the substrates that fuel the growth of these massive numbers of bacteria, and what are the environmental factors that keep them from getting diluted into the water column?”

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/bioluminescent-milky-seas-predicted

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[–] smeg 1 points 4 months ago

Sounds a bit fishy to me