Rambling

[tarigwaemir]

Center for Genomic Research, on the Feast of Ste. Scholastica

I'm sitting at the lab, feeling just the slightest bit frantic because I have a load of work to do and no way to do it. -_- The post-doc left me a to-do list but forgot that the program I need for gridding the microarrays is only accessible from his computer, to which he's now remotely connected from home. It's not on the laptop I'm using right now, and about all I can do at the moment is fiddle around with analysis for the one slide which has been gridded already. Unfortunately, there are a couple of anomalies that I've come across, so I can't progress in that direction either. I've emailed about three times, but I guess he hasn't checked his email yet. ::sighs:: If there's no response by 2, I'm going to call. (By the way, this computer's timestamp is off. It's about 13:40 at the moment, not 10:35).

Just a few days ago, I felt that there wasn't too much homework yet and that I had everything under control, but all of a sudden it appears that I have: a physics problem set due tomorrow, a biology problem set due Monday, two sets of Korean exercises due Monday, a Korean quiz next Wednesday, another physics problem set due next Friday, and chapters and chapters of reading for all four classes. Oh, and let's not forget the pre-labs and paper reading and subsequent lab reports. (Wait, I also have tutorial in the first week of March, which means two more papers. ::groans:: And writing up grant applications. Urgh.) Goal for this weekend: consume a cup of Dunkin Donuts expresso and use the caffeine to magically get all my work done for the next week and a half, leaving myself free for Gasshuku. Hah! Like that's going to happen.

Usually, I'm never at a loss for what to write in my LJ (I mean, for posts of substance, not generic whining like I've been doing lately), but about all I can think of is either resummarizing the first three lectures in biology (which were on the evolvability of living systems, origin of life, rise of eukaryotic cells by endosymbiosis, selective drive for multicellularity and lateral gene transfer) or an organized summary of the Charlemagne lectures (which are beautifully delivered but not always in the best format for taking notes). Either one of those topics would be incredibly useful to me for my own studying and knowledge assimilation, but I don't know how interesting it would be for someone else to read. Votes? Suggestions?

Which reminds me, apparently our biology TF has a rather undisguised dislike for Margulis' endosymbiosis theory regarding the rise of eukaryotic cells. I am not entirely sure why because I was under the impression that endosymbiosis was by now pretty much a widely accepted theory. I mean, it appeared in my high school textbook after all--on the other hand, I've learned lately that high school textbooks are by no means free of scientific...preferences? I mean, one would think that a normal high school biology textbook wouldn't delve into material sophisticated enough to be still subject to significant scientific debate (I don't mean creationism vs. evolution because that is a political debate, not a scientific one), but it surprised me to realize how much, for example, my AP biology textbook was influenced by Gould's ideas and authored by many of his colleagues who agreed with his theories. At some point, one might say that the "bias" is more philosophical than theoretical, but I think it's a sign how one-sided our textbooks can be when I meet for the first time someone who opposes the endosymbiotic theory for the origin of eukaryotic cells. I mean, I didn't know there was an opposition in the first place nor do I know (even now) what the competing theory is. Shall do some research into it later and let you all know.

(While I was writing the last paragraph, I finally got into touch with the post-doc and now that I can happily analyze away in peace, I should probably postpone the rest of this entry for later? In the meantime, what do you think: more theoretical biology? Charlemagne and the Carolingian dynasty? Or should I stop my pretenses of intellectualism and talk about manga? ^_^)

Yours &c.

Post-script: It just occurred to me that I now have a paid account and can make a poll. ::hits forehead:: Oh well, next time. ::dashes off into the loving arms of MS Excel::

Comments

[ladydaera.livejournal.com]

*grin* i vote for both biology and charlamagne! the biology because it would help me keep up in bs54 and charlamagne because it would be a way for me to actually learn while piddling around on LJ. *grin*

which bio textbook did you use in high school? anyway, i agree - it did seem rather odd that she was so sarcastic about it. i'm not entirely convinced that she supports an opposing theory, however - she seemed fairly critical of everything, so perhaps it was just an attitude of general scientific skepticism that she holds?

[troisroyaumes]

XD Well, if you don't mind wading through long incoherent posts...^_^

I used Campbell for AP Biology. As for the TF, I felt she was particularly critical about endosymbiosis--I mean there were many more dubious ideas that she covered while discussing the RNA world and she wasn't half as sarcastic, as you say--and also I overheard her telling a student at section yesterday that she didn't really agree with the theory. I do see what you mean though--she might not necessarily support an opposing theory and just be particularly skeptical about endosymbiosis. Nevertheless, I never really knew that there was any strong criticism of endosymbiosis, particularly after all the evidence that seems to support the idea, and it seems possible that if people reject endosymbiosis outright there probably are alternate theories for the origin of eukaryotes out there, somewhere.

[ladydaera.livejournal.com]

hm, yes, i see your point. and we used campbell too. *grin* i didn't realize until you wrote just now that campbell's views are very much in support of gould...

[troisroyaumes]

I didn't know either, but later, while reading various articles and parts of books and such, I learned that several of the authors in Campbell often co-published with Gould, and the basic philosophical underpinnings, such as taking a hierarchical approach to biology and emphasizing emergent properties, are ideas that belong...well, not specifically to Gould, but sort of the wider circle of scientists with whom he shared philosophical preferences. I didn't really realize that these concepts were linked to a theoretical conflict until recently, when I read an article detailing the "Evolution Wars" that took place chiefly here at Harvard and MIT a couple of decades ago. It's not that the opponents reject so much the concept of emergent properties, but they take a much more strongly reductionistic tone and define evolution as strictly adaptionistic (without taking into account the "constraints" that Prof. Lue talked about in lecture).

I think what surprised me was that how much of what we're taught has a much larger context that we're not aware of. Professor Lue, for example, definitely gave us an account of evolution that has strong theoretical preferences. Some of the statements he made directly contradict the "selfish gene" theory, for example, and leans more towards Gould's views. Personally, from what I know of the "selfish gene" concept, I don't particularly agree with it, but then again, everything that I've been taught has been in a particular framework that doesn't agree with Dawkins. I'm trying to be careful with my word choice because I don't really think people are "taking sides", but there are definitely many aspects of evolutionary theory that are under debate, and I was surprised to find that I was definitely educated according to a specific theoretical bent.

[ladydaera.livejournal.com]

really? how/what conflicts with the selfish gene theory? i haven't read the book, so i don't know much about dawkins' theory beyond the very bare basics. i didn't notice anything lue said as in direct conflict, but then, i don't pay as much attention to these things as you. :-( anyway, it's very interesting, the realization that we were both educated along a specific theoretical bent. the implications are wider, though. while the debate on evolution vs. creationism may not even enter our radar screens as scientific debate, it IS also a very real influence, and much much deadlier than simple scientific controversy. i mean, it's always a shock to read a story on cnn.com about how evolution isn't even taught in many many high schools in the south. can you imagine never even being exposed to the basic theory of biology?! without evolution, there is no order to biology except the artificial categorizations we place upon it!

[troisroyaumes]

When Professor Lue made that whole statement about evolution acts only on phenotype, he contradicts the concept that the gene is the fundamental unit of evolution. Dawkins says that everything is ultimately determined by the gene (incidentally, Prof. Fixsen began his first BS50 lecture with a paraphrase of that idea) and that the organism is simply an elaborate vehicle for the gene's replication. What Lue said, however, in that lecture was that selection works on several levels, the gene, the molecular machinery, the cell (and possibly above, although he didn't go that far), which is Gould's concept proposed in opposition to Dawkins.

You might say that Dawkins' concept is ridiculous or perhaps just a matter of semantics, but actually it's part of a much more subtle debate: can every aspect of phenotype, including complex behavior and even human culture, be reduced and explained entirely in terms of genetics? You might think this is a little extreme, but there's a real trend in certain fields of sociobiology and psychology to take this approach and to find adaptationist explanations for social behavior, etc. And as I mentioned, clearly there are professors in the biology dep't here who are sympathetic to that particular perspective. Lue doesn't seem to be one of those, though, and many of the professors and textbooks I've had so far don't follow that path either.

Oh, and I don't equate scientific controversy to the creationist debate at all. Scientific debates are not ideological wars--people have preferences for certain theories, but they still argue in terms of empirical evidence and experimentation, and ultimately both sides are sane stick to logic. (Look, I'm being nice. >_>) Personally, I don't understand how beautiful and near-intuitive a concept like natural selection could be doubted, and I refuse to call the creationist debate scientific because it's not at all. Biology without evolution is like physics without the four fundamental forces, for goodness' sake. I have a huge rant about creationism on my ::cough:: other blog here. (I know, I know, you're thinking, "How many blogs does this girl have?!" This one's just to keep an account of the books and papers I read. >_>;; It's also the one I try to keep secret as much as possible unlike my LJ.)

[ladydaera.livejournal.com]

interesting. i suppose the debate about whether or not every aspect of phenotype can be attributed to genetics is a rather ambigous question. certainly individual characteristics are very much governed by environment as well as heredity, but can evolution act on genotype completely? eek! this is too much thinking. *goes off to read the creationism blog*