For This New Year: Your Advice Requested

It appears that Blogger reposted my December 23 entry rather than the one that I submitted. I will try again with this message.

This blog has, in its three years of existence, been primarily an outlet for my ideas: the kind of one-directional flow that feels most comfortable to a university professor. I want to change this beginning in 2012.

I would like to begin directly requesting my readers to give me advice. There is always a comment box option, which several of you have used, but my default (like that of most professors) has been to just talk and then acknowledge those few people who raise their hands. But interaction is the successful way to go. The internet is set up to encourage interaction. That means you! I would like to know what topics you would be interested in hearing about. I will continue to post things that I learn (primarily about evolution) but I will try to remember to always request your responses. I am not running out of my own ideas, but there will be plenty of time and space for yours.

I got to be smart by listening to other people—not just at scientific meetings, but everywhere, such as family reunions; not just from science, but from fiction, and from hearing people’s stories. Sometimes I crash a conversation that is going on in the hallway, and when they look at me I just said I wanted to learn something from them.

Let me know in the comment box (now or in any future comment box) what you would like to see discussed in this blog. Also check my website for news and essays. One news item: The Chinese edition of Life of Earth has just been published. I think you have to be in Taiwan to buy it.