Who Is Biology's Feynman?
I just had a sort of summation of a long introspection that I have been having for some months now. Though the answer seems even farther now, I at least understand the problem better.
What am I doing? I am trying to understand a biological phenomenon with various tools that can be used for observing the phenomenon that technology/time/availability/money can afford. I am in a field that is expanding rapidly and already has many major milestones. The opportunities in such a diversified field are many, but is that what I want? Lots of questions on which I can potentially work for years? Anyone doing the work I do will arrive at the same results, he just needs intuition and common sense above a certain cut off (Usually this cut-off determines if science is the field for him/her).
My creativity/imagination is just used in identifying a particular piece of puzzle that hasn't been solved by anyone else. Again, in such a diversified field, such identification is just random, hit or miss or usually brought by a patron who has been in a particular sub-field for so many years that he knows whats been done and whats not.
The pursuit of research now is then "What" and "How" rather than "Why". I have been pushing around my mind this lack of "Why". I agree that it takes a good deal of intelligence to solve a complex biological problem like functioning of an ion channel or the signaling mechanisms of biological systems. And of course its fascinating to know the consequences, like homeostasis or fast responses to external stimuli.
But is there an underlying law which governs Biology? There are so many indications of one. The genetic material of all organisms, be it a bug or a human is made up of DNA. All proteins on this earth have been shown to have only a limited number of distinct "folds" or shapes, though there are millions of possibilities.
"Survival of the fittest" Evolution can be thought of as the answer. But I would discard it as the "trivial solution".
Then what is the unifying law governing Biology??
What am I doing? I am trying to understand a biological phenomenon with various tools that can be used for observing the phenomenon that technology/time/availability/money can afford. I am in a field that is expanding rapidly and already has many major milestones. The opportunities in such a diversified field are many, but is that what I want? Lots of questions on which I can potentially work for years? Anyone doing the work I do will arrive at the same results, he just needs intuition and common sense above a certain cut off (Usually this cut-off determines if science is the field for him/her).
My creativity/imagination is just used in identifying a particular piece of puzzle that hasn't been solved by anyone else. Again, in such a diversified field, such identification is just random, hit or miss or usually brought by a patron who has been in a particular sub-field for so many years that he knows whats been done and whats not.
The pursuit of research now is then "What" and "How" rather than "Why". I have been pushing around my mind this lack of "Why". I agree that it takes a good deal of intelligence to solve a complex biological problem like functioning of an ion channel or the signaling mechanisms of biological systems. And of course its fascinating to know the consequences, like homeostasis or fast responses to external stimuli.
But is there an underlying law which governs Biology? There are so many indications of one. The genetic material of all organisms, be it a bug or a human is made up of DNA. All proteins on this earth have been shown to have only a limited number of distinct "folds" or shapes, though there are millions of possibilities.
"Survival of the fittest" Evolution can be thought of as the answer. But I would discard it as the "trivial solution".
Then what is the unifying law governing Biology??
posted by nomad at 10:03 PM
3 Comments:
and there's the added complication that patterns that turn up in non-biological things are observed so very frequently in living systems.
Probably because the thing that is life is built on physical things?
When does it make the transition from being a sum of its physical building blocks to something that has new rules of its own that fit into the existing framework?
I have a digital microscope at home :) It's supposed to be a 'toy', sorta. But it magnifies up to 200X and even if the resolution isn't great, it's fascinating to look at anything from sugar crystals to wormy things in a leaf-blister to moss to blood clotting real time..!
>>>Whats the unifying law governing Biology??
I don't see a unifying law specifically for Biology. Probably there are some fundamental laws that govern the behavior of all physical material. Electrostatic force is one such. Biological mass is just another subset. Evolution appears to be a fundamental law for biology, though I consider it as a result of fundamental laws like electrostatic force. Electrostatic forces are may be sitting on top of some other level of fundamental laws which we are not aware of yet.
Electrostatic forces etc yes they play the most basic part in determining what is allowed physically.But biology is different because of the complexity that arises at the level above the basic forces. "Biology" I envisage it under the perview of a dynamic rule which has a pattern though. To explain better there is a complex interaction between the non-biological forces be it the natural background radiation or for that matter the sun. This interaction shapes every aspect of us being alive. Be it in terms of the levels of protein expressed or the types. This effect can be distinguished into two, one being the short term effect in terms of immediate changes and the long term effects in terms of skewing the basic laws of physics in specific directions instead of being purely stochastic. What we are doing in pursuing biology is to deconvolute these two effects and express the whole thing in terms of an equation.I believe that this can be done but it would involve a grand unification of all sciences as we know them today from meterology to anthropology. Because we do not only need to know the biological implications but every aspect of the non-biological interactions that take palce.
One might be tempted to infer that I have explained evolution in alternate words. My view is evolution and survival of the fittest is at the next plane where the process of selection that has happened in the plane below is endorsed in terms of the natural surroundings in the immediate context.
So to summarize the non-biological world shapes biology independent of survival of the fittest and evolution. Evolution serves to be the next level of selection at which specific traits are chosen in the immediate context.
Post a Comment
<< Home