Science performs a multitude of greater good for humanity. The good outweighs the bad in almost immeasurable ways. But there are those fleeting times science goes off-the-rails in head-shaking, sigh-inducing, groan-grumbling fashion. This is where we point to those great moments mistakes in science.
Today: The Cutting Down of a Nearly 5,000 Year Old Tree
They are relatively short and fairly ugly with little foliage, but they are as alive as they are ugly--and they are old. The oldest non-clonal organisms in the world are not the giant sequoia or the redwood. Instead, age is found in the plump, gangly limbs of the Great Basin bristlecone pine, found in the western United States, in spots humans rarely tread, so far and so distant the trees climb away from civilization and often into the mountains.
Donald Currey, then a graduate student at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 1964, was one of many scientists looking to seek out the oldest trees on the planet. For Currey, this was to examine the climate dynamics of the Little Ice Age, an event that happened from roughly the years 1300 to 1850. Currey's search brought him to Wheeler Peak in Nevada, where nearby bristlecone pines were known to survive well over a thousand years.
Through a series of curious decisions by Currey, the National Park Service, or others, the then-oldest known living organism on the planet, a bristlecone named Prometheus, was cut down. The question that never has had a collectively-agreed upon answer is simple. Why?
Currey's aim seemed noble. He was looking to study climate change when it wasn't a talking point, even if it was climate change of centuries ago, and the coring of some trees in the Wheeler Peak area suggested this specific grove of bristlecones was at least 3,000-years old.
The problem with--or, maybe better said, the beauty of--bristlecones is that the very features of their appearance that look dead are often that. Dead. Significant portions of the tree can be killed during forest fires or other natural disasters, but if a portion survives the tree itself usually survives. Sometimes, although rarely, this strip of living tree can be as small as two inches wide, but such tiny available living trunk makes taking a coring sample difficult in order to ascertain the tree's actual age. Such was the case with Prometheus.
Stories vary as to how Prometheus ended up dead and on its side. The National Park Service claims they simply granted permission to "a researcher" (who is not named on their site, oddly) to take coring samples from some trees and to entirely cut down one other bristlecone. The Park Service alludes that Currey (who shall not be named!) simply chose Prometheus by chance. Upon felling the tree, he counted the rings and performed various analyses that said the bristlecone was 4,844 years old (and later raised to 4,862 years old), making it the then-oldest known living non-clonal organism in the world.
Other stories, like by The Smithsonian Magazine, claim that Currey simply aimed to sample Prometheus--yet, as the tree was so old, his coring tool became stuck in the bristlecone's deadened facade. A park ranger, Donald Cox, offering assistance at the time, allegedly allowed the tree to be the lone bristlecone cut down. And yet others, like at Terrain, say Currey knew fully well the tree he wanted was much older than others in the area and sought it out. The great curiosity, as the San Francisco Chronicle once noted, is if one is researching the Little Ice Age that happened somewhere around 600 years ago, why cut down any tree thousands of years old when many other younger trees would do?
The reasoning or fault for the end of Prometheus varies on which individual tells the story. Regardless, what always remains a constant is some people agreed, at some point, that the cutting down of a known thousands-of-years-old tree was acceptable. And--which might be the only concrete point of this story--Currey was only a graduate student at the time, not an expert in his field. His wealth of knowledge on ancient trees in 1964 was solid, although probably not rich. Not nearly as rich as when he died in 2004 as an esteemed scientist in his field.
In the end, Prometheus--the ancient Titan from Greek mythology--created mankind and gave humans fire, the power to destruct.
Leave it to humans to kill Prometheus--the ancient tree older than most Greek mythology--to complete the sad, poetic circle.
Today: The Cutting Down of a Nearly 5,000 Year Old Tree
They are relatively short and fairly ugly with little foliage, but they are as alive as they are ugly--and they are old. The oldest non-clonal organisms in the world are not the giant sequoia or the redwood. Instead, age is found in the plump, gangly limbs of the Great Basin bristlecone pine, found in the western United States, in spots humans rarely tread, so far and so distant the trees climb away from civilization and often into the mountains.
Donald Currey, then a graduate student at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 1964, was one of many scientists looking to seek out the oldest trees on the planet. For Currey, this was to examine the climate dynamics of the Little Ice Age, an event that happened from roughly the years 1300 to 1850. Currey's search brought him to Wheeler Peak in Nevada, where nearby bristlecone pines were known to survive well over a thousand years.
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| What's left of Prometheus. (Wikipedia) |
Through a series of curious decisions by Currey, the National Park Service, or others, the then-oldest known living organism on the planet, a bristlecone named Prometheus, was cut down. The question that never has had a collectively-agreed upon answer is simple. Why?
Currey's aim seemed noble. He was looking to study climate change when it wasn't a talking point, even if it was climate change of centuries ago, and the coring of some trees in the Wheeler Peak area suggested this specific grove of bristlecones was at least 3,000-years old.
The problem with--or, maybe better said, the beauty of--bristlecones is that the very features of their appearance that look dead are often that. Dead. Significant portions of the tree can be killed during forest fires or other natural disasters, but if a portion survives the tree itself usually survives. Sometimes, although rarely, this strip of living tree can be as small as two inches wide, but such tiny available living trunk makes taking a coring sample difficult in order to ascertain the tree's actual age. Such was the case with Prometheus.
Stories vary as to how Prometheus ended up dead and on its side. The National Park Service claims they simply granted permission to "a researcher" (who is not named on their site, oddly) to take coring samples from some trees and to entirely cut down one other bristlecone. The Park Service alludes that Currey (who shall not be named!) simply chose Prometheus by chance. Upon felling the tree, he counted the rings and performed various analyses that said the bristlecone was 4,844 years old (and later raised to 4,862 years old), making it the then-oldest known living non-clonal organism in the world.
Other stories, like by The Smithsonian Magazine, claim that Currey simply aimed to sample Prometheus--yet, as the tree was so old, his coring tool became stuck in the bristlecone's deadened facade. A park ranger, Donald Cox, offering assistance at the time, allegedly allowed the tree to be the lone bristlecone cut down. And yet others, like at Terrain, say Currey knew fully well the tree he wanted was much older than others in the area and sought it out. The great curiosity, as the San Francisco Chronicle once noted, is if one is researching the Little Ice Age that happened somewhere around 600 years ago, why cut down any tree thousands of years old when many other younger trees would do?
The reasoning or fault for the end of Prometheus varies on which individual tells the story. Regardless, what always remains a constant is some people agreed, at some point, that the cutting down of a known thousands-of-years-old tree was acceptable. And--which might be the only concrete point of this story--Currey was only a graduate student at the time, not an expert in his field. His wealth of knowledge on ancient trees in 1964 was solid, although probably not rich. Not nearly as rich as when he died in 2004 as an esteemed scientist in his field.
In the end, Prometheus--the ancient Titan from Greek mythology--created mankind and gave humans fire, the power to destruct.
Leave it to humans to kill Prometheus--the ancient tree older than most Greek mythology--to complete the sad, poetic circle.
