I should have loved biology • Hacker News Board

Re: I should have loved biology

#111

Post by brundolf » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 6:47 AM UTC

m463 wrote: post #2

I read this and it it fills me with so much melancholy. I took biology 101 in college and what I thought would be really interesting turned out to be SO unexpectedly meaningless. Now years later all I recall is the memorization of phylums and kingdoms on one test and cell structures on another test and sitting in a large auditorium looking at the map and not the territory. The course was so much about WHAT and never…

This is how nearly every STEM class I've ever taken has been (and really, things like history too). I retained a passing interest in math despite my classes. I was lucky to develop a foundational interest in programming before classes had the chance to ruin it. It's simply par for the course of our education system, at least in the United States.

I wonder how many talented scientists never got started because they were turned off by their first exposure to a subject.

Re: I should have loved biology

#112

Post by pdm55 » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 6:52 AM UTC

Sometimes companies that sell proteins, enzymes, antibodies, etc. have good educational resources. I came across this company blog the other day:

https://blog.cellsignal.com/

They also have diagrams of the internal structure of cells. Maybe, one day, they will add explanations beyond the succinct labels that they presently have:

https://www.cellsignal.com/contents/science/cellular-landsca...

Re: I should have loved biology

#113

Post by friendlybus » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 6:55 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #101

friendlybus wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, well the 'current' argument is that it's unlikely for a bunch of reasons. - cambrian explosion of life is seen as unlikely given that changing random genes or dna mutations has such a low success rate in generating new life, that an explosion of life happening all at once seems out of step with the math. - we don't know how to create life at all. adding up bits and pieces of molecules into cells and onwards can b…

Ah so you mean the mathematical unlikeliness that evolution brought forth the complexity we see today, not that evolution happens at all. That makes more sense. I think it's hard to come up with solid arguments either way, because we only have a poor understanding of genetics and hence we can only give very rough estimates on the amount of complexity needed, and how much can be introduced in a given unit of time. I'm…

No, I do mean a doubt in evolution over all.

The complexity argument has problems because in the small error bars of dna replication, it's so easy to introduce a sequence that actively hurts the animal, or is useless. Producing a whole new limb or whatever is way more complicated that we'd like it to be.

The discussion overall is part of a larger move by the intellectual/theological groups to bring back language (and psychology elsewhere) back into the old energy and matter world-view.

I agree it's hard to answer, the James Tour video is a nice place to start because he talks about biological engineering problems that his students are covering for him. They make little nano-robots and the like in part of the presentation. It seems inevitable that we won't see an overall answer for thousands of years.

Re: I should have loved biology

#114

Post by joshuamcginnis » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 7:00 AM UTC

hnmm23 wrote: post #106

joshuamcginnis wrote: post #41

After 15 years in tech and a life-changing psychedelic trip, I decided to self-learn genetic engineering and share it with the world[1][2] while I look for a meaningful biotech venture to found. What you can do today from your kitchen or home lab is remarkable. For instance, I taught myself PCR (polymerase chain reaction) and recently published my first genetic sequence at GenBank from fungi that I cultured, extracte…

i asked this elsehwere in the thread, and if you scroll lower you'll see why i want to learn but this is going to sound like a bit of a ramble as im tired and feeling passionate and emotional right now but bear with me... ..if i want to learn more bio not bc i want to hack or edit genes or whatever but because of reasons such as: understanding autoimmune diseases, the treatments for them, relationship to other issues…

Go to scholar.google.com, search "autoimmune disease treatment", filter by last five years, use sci-hub to read the paper. Repeat until you learn enough to find your next step forward.

Re: I should have loved biology

#115

Post by arrosenberg » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 7:05 AM UTC

hnmm23 wrote: post #26

I've been struggling with this same thought recently too, namely because my partner who I love so dearly is struggling with diagnoses that most physicians are just not too informed on yet, let alone the underpaid, overworked public hospital system we're dealing with. It took us years and years and years, tons of shot gun approaches by doctors with treatments, diagnoses, and medications that treat the symptoms but not…

I started to reply to one of your other comments before coming to the background one. I was basically going to recommend going the university education route. I have a degree in biochem/molbio, and the topics you are interested was basically the third year of my degree. Not to discourage you (you can do anything if you want to bad enough), but they are pretty complex topics and without the foundational knowledge you are going to be saying "wait, it did what?!" a lot. I know this, because I did have all the foundational knowledge and was frequently saying that.

If you have no background in biology or chemistry, I would email the authors of papers you are interested in. Most of those researchers are starved for attention and would love to break it down for you. Try making friends with one or two of the locals so they can explain more papers to you. Eventually osmosis will do its thing.

Re: I should have loved biology

#116

Post by ramraj07 » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 7:05 AM UTC

I resonate greatly with this article and am inspired to do something that I've been putting off for a long time, which is to start a youtube channel explaining cell/molecular biology/immunology topics to general public. What would some interesting questions to tackle first in such a channel?

Re: I should have loved biology

#117

Post by hnmm23 » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 7:12 AM UTC

joshuamcginnis wrote: post #114

hnmm23 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i asked this elsehwere in the thread, and if you scroll lower you'll see why i want to learn but this is going to sound like a bit of a ramble as im tired and feeling passionate and emotional right now but bear with me... ..if i want to learn more bio not bc i want to hack or edit genes or whatever but because of reasons such as: understanding autoimmune diseases, the treatments for them, relationship to other issues…

Go to scholar.google.com, search "autoimmune disease treatment", filter by last five years, use sci-hub to read the paper. Repeat until you learn enough to find your next step forward.

i mean i want to learn about everything before that too, like history, links, diagnoses - to be sure, as well as testing/tracking metrics and the likes,

also reading is the easy part, but what about understanding? when im running into medical terms/and other things im not familiar with or equipped to understand, where do you go? bc i find myself ending down different rabbit holes and my productivty diminishes and my thinking gets scattered

i hope im making sense :)

Re: I should have loved biology

#118

Post by orobinson » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 7:13 AM UTC

I’ve always wondered why I found Biology less interesting than Physics or Chemistry at school and this article certainly hits the nail on the head. However I think in more recent years I’ve come to appreciate it at as an interesting subject. The same goes for History.

I think another root cause is modern schooling does a pretty terrible job of teaching a passion for learning (unless of course you’re lucky enough to have some amazing teachers). I didn’t really completely discover the joy of learning until I did my degree and since then I’ve had a renewed interest in subjects I paid less attention to in school because the thought of learning new things excites me a whole lot more than it used to.

Re: I should have loved biology

#119

Post by hnmm23 » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 7:14 AM UTC

arrosenberg wrote: post #115

hnmm23 wrote: post #26

I've been struggling with this same thought recently too, namely because my partner who I love so dearly is struggling with diagnoses that most physicians are just not too informed on yet, let alone the underpaid, overworked public hospital system we're dealing with. It took us years and years and years, tons of shot gun approaches by doctors with treatments, diagnoses, and medications that treat the symptoms but not…

I started to reply to one of your other comments before coming to the background one. I was basically going to recommend going the university education route. I have a degree in biochem/molbio, and the topics you are interested was basically the third year of my degree. Not to discourage you (you can do anything if you want to bad enough), but they are pretty complex topics and without the foundational knowledge you…

hmm thats understandable, ive found im met with that resistance with a LOT of questions i have about a lot of fields that you need an education to understand, yet somehow i manage(d), and will have to for now.

in the immediate time being, do you have any alternative, actionable advice? topics/subjects/key people i can consider or look into that you covered your 3rd year?

not saying i disagree with your comment Nor that i dont want to go the education route, trust me i would love that time and leisure, but right now my brain cant be put at ease until i understand certain things

Re: I should have loved biology

#120

Post by neurostimulant » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 7:16 AM UTC

I was always into computers stuff since I was young, but biology always give we a feeling of wonder and excitement. In high school I always planned to enter the Informatics Olympiad (there are multitude of Science Olympiad in high school where you compete on city level, then regional state/province lever, then nationally and ultimately on international level). Instead, I got hooked into biology and ended up competing on the Biology Olympiad all the way into the International Biology Olympiad.

When people asked me why a person that loves computer like me is getting into biology so much, my answer is how come anyone not getting crazy over biology? The rabbit hole is so deep, I can't help but dig and dig just to satisfy my curiosity. When people heard about biology they always imagine endless recitation on taxonomy and stuff but like the author wrote, that's not what biology is all about.

Alas, I ended up not having a career in biology-related field though. I'm a programmer through-and-through. But I did meet my wife through these event so it's not all for nothing, and I still like biology.