What a tiresome article. It's laced with the stupidest kind of anthropomorphism - always interpreting a creature in nature as though it is a human mind. For example, the first sentence including "fluid, nonbinary way of being". For those in the know, these are references to genderfluidity, non binary and queer ways of being. None of this - as it applies to humans - is relevant to the study of slime molds! There may be a weak (very weak!) parallel, but such a matter doesn't affect the slime mold, nor inform how a human being should live in the world.
And then later it refers to some lesbain poet who talked about slime molds in a poem. And meaningless speculation about how slime molds are "unstudied" due to a revulsion of slime, which is pointed out to be feminine. Not an argument I'm going to buy, for if there extremely well studied from early times, then this article would perhaps be talking about how slime molds are seminal in nature. So, meaningless in the sense it's unfalsifiable. Maybe search for actual reasons why they're unstudied and improperly categorised, like they're difficult to study? Or that good scientists try to be as parsimonious with category as possible, so that those categories retain explantory power? But that has to be ignored, so the Queer theoretic "violence of categorization" can be undermined with nature.
It's tiresome. If you've found an interesting creature in nature, then write what makes that creature interesting. It doesn't (ever) need to include what a lesbian writer thought it taught humans how to live. Because it doesn't, really.
And then later it refers to some lesbain poet who talked about slime molds in a poem. And meaningless speculation about how slime molds are "unstudied" due to a revulsion of slime, which is pointed out to be feminine. Not an argument I'm going to buy, for if there extremely well studied from early times, then this article would perhaps be talking about how slime molds are seminal in nature. So, meaningless in the sense it's unfalsifiable. Maybe search for actual reasons why they're unstudied and improperly categorised, like they're difficult to study? Or that good scientists try to be as parsimonious with category as possible, so that those categories retain explantory power? But that has to be ignored, so the Queer theoretic "violence of categorization" can be undermined with nature.
It's tiresome. If you've found an interesting creature in nature, then write what makes that creature interesting. It doesn't (ever) need to include what a lesbian writer thought it taught humans how to live. Because it doesn't, really.