Re-imagining
A few words of wisdom from an actual scientist: "find out what you want to do. You'll then find that you wake up earlier, go to sleep later, and use most of your spare time to assess what you need to do, what you can and can't do, how likely you are to be able to publish, who your friends are, who your friends need to be, what you need to read, and what you don't need to read". This is the life. The life that I might choose? A life of conferences, poster boards, review articles, discussions of new hypotheses over sake, comaprisons of subjective states, tallyings of lab animal deats? What better life? A sheltered life, one that allows spiky crystals of cynicism to poke through the smoothed-over exterior once the floodligts turn off over the cooling fridges and large, vague machinery used for electrophoresis or electroporation. A life of being a vengeful god with all the follies of the model animal. Is this it? Ever more specific spirals of colur patterns from fractals, always yielding coastlines of equivalent complexity, nothing done in the end but a clever language game following all the rules and protocols, hours spent peering over buffers and solution incubators, saying things like "well, that's unusual", or "that's impossible". A life in which they'll eventually beat out the dreams of doing fMRI scans on yogis or nuns or meditating monks with cold, hard, quantifiable results. A life of cheap coffee at the aforementioned conferences.
Consider: "Where do babies come from? Don't bother asking adults. They lie like pigs. However, diligent independent research and hours of playground consultation have yielded fruitful, if tentative, results. There are several theories. Near as we can figure out, it has something to do with acting ridiculous in the dark. We believe it is similar to dogs when they act peculiar and ride each other. This is called "making love". Careful study of popular song lyrics, advertising catch-lines, TV sitcoms, movies, and T-Shirt inscriptions offers us significant clues as to its nature. Apparently it makes grown-ups insipid and insane. Some graffiti was once observed that said "sex is good". All available evidence, however, points to the contrary."
Consider: "Where do babies come from? Don't bother asking adults. They lie like pigs. However, diligent independent research and hours of playground consultation have yielded fruitful, if tentative, results. There are several theories. Near as we can figure out, it has something to do with acting ridiculous in the dark. We believe it is similar to dogs when they act peculiar and ride each other. This is called "making love". Careful study of popular song lyrics, advertising catch-lines, TV sitcoms, movies, and T-Shirt inscriptions offers us significant clues as to its nature. Apparently it makes grown-ups insipid and insane. Some graffiti was once observed that said "sex is good". All available evidence, however, points to the contrary."
posted by A. D. at 12:38 AM
4 Comments:
Now, we've all been introduced to the prophet molecular biology...
I'm amazed at how much blind faith we have put into that genetic map. At the end of the day, I can't help but wonder, if someone were to disprove all the fundamentals of molecular biology (for example, some new quantum physics proof by which the Central Dogma can not be applied anymore, subjecting DNA replication, transcription and translation to a matter of pure luck). As unlikely as that would be, I can't help but wonder if "they" would tell us and the rest of the scientific community about such a revelation. Would "they" have the heart to let us know that all the PCRs, the agarose gels, we ran and the solutions we made (which made us choke on SDS) were in vain? Would "they" let us know that this massive influx and flow of cash which permeates our society were absolutely absurd? Or would "they" keep the charade going like so many other "institutions" have done in the past?
Just a silly fear I suppose. But then again, somehow, inside of me, I have a feeling that so much of current laboratory jobs relies on absolute blind faith put into facts that are passively absorbed at the deep end of some lecture hall...Most "scientists" ,I bet, don't care (and probably are too embarassed, myself included) to admit that they actually have no clue about how this whole "genetic machine" really works. Yes, we are told, 5' to 3', we are told of nucleotides, of okazaki fragments, of mutations, recombinations, mitosis and meiosis... And yet, how many of us cared to question, to determine how it all actually works at that level, how many of us cared to actually SEE it happen to believe it (and I'm not talking about blurry little images figured in biology textbooks)? Are we supposed to just accept that the way everything works is by combinations of acetylation, phosphorylation, nucleophilic attacks or what not (what is all that really supposed to mean anyways?) Is this apathy necessary as the obvious overabundance of information makes it impossible to completely understand everything behind our "science". At least,it is definetely necessary if we want to continue on working with the electrophoresis, the electroporation and countless other gadgets we find in our labs.
All I know for sure now is that I do wake up earlier, go to sleep later and have planned my weeks according to knock-down and overexpression experiments with the proper controls. Oh the life...
That was some damn good counterpoint. It's telling that they chose to call it the central dogma, isn't it?
It's sad that the only entry into the life is through menial lab labour. One day they'll automate most of the protocols, much like in a car parts factory. That'll probably axe a lot of jobs and a lot of undergrads will be left clueless as to how to get into research. So we'll have to make greater leaps: from lecture hall to theorizing. No in-between. No apprecation of how time-consuming every little thing is. It seems to me that most molecular biology labours are slated to be replaced by something more efficient. How does that make the labourer feel?
Somewhere there is a grad student going mad, splashing tubs of ethidium bormide all over his hands. His poor hands.
Gotta love the life.
Cheers!
man, i'd totally order automated mini prep or maxi prep...haha
now that's called high standards of living!
The prophet preaches sternly, but little does it know it's actually the null mutant for CaM kinase. Poor little bugger: he'll never learn.
That was so un-witty I almost deleted it. But meh.
Cheers!
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