Lesson 7: Messages from Masters of Nature, Science, and Economics
Notice the thread of common thought shared by the following people, even though each work(ed) within a different field or century. (highlighted and bolded).
Galileo Galilei: See now the power of truth; the same experiment which at first glance seemed to show one thing, when more carefully examined, assures us of the contrary.
David R. Caprette, Rice University
Textbooks seldom tell us how much science knows and does not know about them (microtubules), and of course they cannot keep up with the latest discoveries. To fully understand a subject it is important to go to multiple sources. If the subject is especially important to you, you should seek the primary literature, namely original research reports.
Medical Gas Research 2011, 1:23 doi:10.1186/2045-9912-1-23, Commentary:
Often times in the day to day work of scientific endeavor, our efforts are not so much discovery as window dressing. Innovation has become a casualty of increasingly limited resources and the demands for concrete results in return for investment. Thus, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) tend to fund known investigators in established project lines and we learn more and more about vanishingly small and irrelevant details of things such as the thromboelastographic characterization of fibrinolysis, while the incidence of autism in the United States stands at 1 in 110 children and continues to increase without explanation [1]. Similarly, commercial scientific funding emphasizes the certain result, that is, the “win”, rather than a gamble on the unknown.
Paul Krugman
“I was naive about many things. But my biggest misconception was this: I actually believed that influential people could be moved by evidence, that they would change their views if events completely refuted their beliefs.”
Gilbert Ling:
ON DEVOLUTION OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD:
The last 50 years in the history of life sciences are remarkable for a new important feature that looks as a great threat for their future. A profound specialization dominating in quickly developing fields of science causes a crisis of the scientific method. The essence of the method is a unity of two elements, the experimental data and the theory that explains them. To us, “fathers” of science, classically, were (are) the creators of new ideas and theories. They were the true experts of their own theories. It is only they who have the right to say: “I am the theory”. In other words, they were carriers of theories, of the theoretical knowledge. The fathers provided the necessary logical integrity to their theories, since theories in biology have not still to be based on strict mathematical proofs. It is not true for sons. As a result of massive specialization, modern experts operate in very confined spaces. They formulate particular rules far from the level of theory. The main theories of science are known to them only at the textbook level. Nowadays, nobody can say: “I am the theory”. With whom, then is it possible to discuss today on a broader theoretical level? How can a classical theory – for example, the membrane one – be changed or even disproved under these conditions? How can the “sons” with their narrow education catch sight of membrane theory defects? As a result, “global” theories have few critics and control. Due to specialization, we have lost the ability to work at the experimental level of biology within the correct or appropriate theoretical context. The scientific method in its classic form is now being rapidly eroded.
The Purpose of Soil And Health Library: http://www.soilandhealth.org/index.html
The wisest student learns from the originators of a body of knowledge because those who later follow in the founders’ footsteps are not trailblazers of equivalent depth. This is especially true of the writings from many post WWII academics and professors who mainly write because they must publish . . . or perish. Even when the earliest works in a field contain errors because their authors lacked some bit of data or had a fact wrong, their books still contain enormous wisdom. If nothing else, study of older books lets us discover that the conditions that prevail today aren’t the way things always were—whilst on some levels, some things hardly ever change at all.
Source and/or suggested readings:
1.Comparative Gut Microflora, Metabolic Challenges, and Potential Opportunities
- Apajalahti Alimetrics Ltd, FIN-00380 Helsinki, Finland Download from Dropbox
The Processes of Death and Decomposition
By Farlander: http://h2g2.com/approved_entry/A2451683#conversations
MicrobeWiki, the student-edited microbiology resource
Small Intestine: http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Small_Intestine
Some of my Best Friends are Germs
Woman Drinks Only Soda for 16 Years, Suffers Heart Problems
http://www.livescience.com/37707-excessive-soda-consumption-heart-problems.html#
*Other acids are also produced in a series of 10 steps as glucose converts to lactic acid. But for practical purposes we can assume only one is produced as far as a ‘primary waste product’ is concerned.
** If you are thinking, “wait a minute!… ATP is used to power muscles,” then you need to realize ATP is not a fuel substrate per se’, but the final and actual stuff that goes K’POW to make a muscle contract. ‘P’ in ATP stands for phosphorous, which is the explosive stuff on a match head you strike it to light it. We totally ignore ATP for now; it’s ridiculous to teach the role of ATP in muscle metabolism (as most textbooks do) before learning the more meaningful connection between the food you eat and how muscles use food as fuel substrate.
***Even thought ATP powers explosive movements without oxygen, ATP is not a fuel substrate. Glucose and fat are fuel substrates used to produce ATP. Fermenting glucose produces ATP much faster and in greater amounts than aerobic metabolism of glucose.
****At the turn of the 19th Century and throughout the first half of the 20th century, glycolysis – the reaction that causes high intensity, anaerobic muscle contractions – was called fermentation.
**** Not all bacteria are ‘obligated’ to feed only on sugar/carbs.