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A Scientist Is Selling the Right To Name His Newly-Discovered Moth On eBay (vice.com)
sarahnaomi writes: An entomologist has decided to use eBay to auction off the naming rights for a newly-discovered species of moth. When a new species is discovered, the honor of naming it goes to whoever found it. However, Eric H. Metzler, an entomologist from the Wedge Entomological Foundation, decided to ask Western National Parks Association—who funded some of his research—to start an online auction and take the proceeds. “It’s getting harder and harder to get funding to do this research because it’s not seen as a priority in the way it used to be, even though it’s fundamental to our understanding of biodiversity,” says Paolo Viscardi, a curator at University College London’s Grant Museum. “Any mechanism where you can raise more funds to continue your work is taken—so I guess [auctioning of the naming rights] is another way to fund your research.”
n/t
Republicans do love eBay.
I clicked this article, expecting to shake my head in disgust. Instead, that actually sounds like a pretty good idea for funding research. Bravo to Metzler for putting his pride second to his research.
when you take our research for granted and don't provide us sufficient funding after we had to work our asses off just for a chance to be real scientists, don't expect us to not look for alternate methods of funding.
And we all know how moths feel about that.
This sounds like the perfect bid for GoldenPalace.com, which has a history of bidding on odd or unusual items as part of their marketing strategy. In fact, they have bid in the past on the scientific naming privileges for a new species of primate discovered in the Amazon basin among other strange items including a partially eaten grilled cheese sandwich with the likeness of a religious figure and a haunted cane to name just a couple. So, if anyone from Golden Palace is still listening, do this scientist a good turn and buy this so that he can continue his research. Thanks.
Money goes where the market is, and the market with the highest margins is the one for vanity. Incomprehensible junk like 'science' is only useful when it produces weaponry or shiny trinkets.
I may be IT by profession but I'm an entomologist by degree. Discovering a new species of moth is fringe, not fundamental. Calling it so is no more than an attempt to "raise more funds". While it is interesting to find new species, they are now very low population (especially in the US) and have a very minor influence on the ecology.
MOTHERA!
And it shall henceforth be known as the ebay moth, whatever he decides to call it.
I see no way this could possibly go wrong. (Brought to you by Carl's Junior.)
to secure "HitlerDidNothingWrong".
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Givira hitlerdidnothingwrongi
Join my gofundme and we can ensure it's named DICKBUTT!
And then we start the breeding program to distribute these moths across the entire country!
...kjhwekfhciu876*&^8gjHGJt&T*&hjhVJHjhgj^*&*fjhjhbkjhpjvhgd
Doubles as a password.
I bid for: moth'); DROP TABLE Insects; --
Dave Gorman did an episode where using a pre existing naming site he named one for Benedict CumberthatchedroofYeOldeInne
The Supreme Court has ruled that that "right" doesn't apply to the 3nd Amendment.
Totally not the same person. Of course not.
"Joe." Here's fifty bucks...
...Nopea Nopeiensis?
Set different names for different brackets. The higher up the cash goes, the more offensive the name gets.
Well not any more it doesn't.
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
This is what they do.
This is modded as a -1 for flamebait but I have to ask. Why is this a bad idea? You want to continue your research and you thought of an ingenious way to bring in some much needed money. Kudos to you. The article says that the winning bidder gets to work with the scientist on naming so it sounds like he is retaining some amount of veto power. The only thing I might change is give him the option of not necessarily picking the highest bidder if the 2nd or 3rd highest bidder had a more reasonable name.
I'm a Republican, and if I needed research funds for my obscure moth project, that's exactly what I would do.
Naming rights build football stadiums, so why shouldn't they fund scientific research? If we auctioned off naming rights to those features on Pluto and Charon that New Horizons just imaged, imagine how much money we could raiseP
There's no way science knows about all the different moths that arrive. There will be maybe 10,000 moths and none of them look the same.
Dude... that scene in fight club about planet McDonalds was supposed to be horrifying not inspirational.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
For people who aren't Republicans, the giving the wealthy more power usually does not end well. You can let them name all your stadiums and streets, and you probably give up a little of your local culture. If you let them name all your animals, you might lose a little something in science as well. My guess is that it will be harder to take science seriously just that little bit more once this is through.
Well - a website: http://biopat.de/
It is labeled as flaimbait because of the subject line, attributing this behavior to Republicans.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Actually, naming rights go to the team, not to the city that built the stadium. It is free money to the sports team. Sad but true.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I would imagine that he retains the rights, but rather is selling a promise to name it whatever the winning bidder wants.
So, however much this guy's word is worth, which may be negative, plus whatever it is worth to somebody to get to choose what to name something is actually how much one should bid.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I can't wait until 4chan raises enough money to win and name it JETFUELCANTMELTSTEELBEAMS