Streetlight Effect

Biological Parallel

We study fruit flies, mice, and E. coli not because they represent life's diversity but because they're easy to study in labs. The streetlight effect biases all of biology: most knowledge comes from a few model organisms while millions of species remain unexamined. We know more about lab-adapted yeast than wild fungi that shape entire forests. This isn't bad science; it's pragmatic—but it means our biological 'truth' is heavily skewed toward convenient rather than representative organisms. The light determines what we see, not what's actually there.