I should have loved biology too • Hacker News Board

Re: I should have loved biology too

#71

Post by ricardo81 » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 7:40 PM UTC

philsnow wrote: post #57

My interest in biology isn’t driven at all by stories, history, or “adventure”, but rather by the awe-inspiring complexity and majesty of all the microbiological processes and their interplay. Yes, it’s pop science, but last be year I read through Philipp Dettmer’s “Immune”, and the description of how the immune system continuously generates random/arbitrary sequences of nucleotides, builds the proteins that those se…

same inspiration but I wouldn't devolve it to 'pop science', it's simply less axiomatic than physicists and mathematicians would like. The fact there's 4 billion years of ecological change beyond the biological change just makes stuff hard to prove empirically.

esp. when physicists use things like the anthropic principle to describe our own universe.

Re: I should have loved biology too

#72

Post by __MatrixMan__ » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 7:40 PM UTC

ramraj07 wrote: post #28

sdenton4 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author did fine in another field, but might have picked biology instead if they had gotten the switch flipped earlier in life. That some people get through bad classes isn't a proof that those classes are good; you get those few who would survive no matter what, and those whose brain-wiring is conducive to the way the bad classes are structured. This has a tendency to reduce diversity of thought over time, and co…

As a biologist with a tech background (but actual biotechnology majors) - please we have enough tech bros who think they're biology's saviors. They'll just come in fascinated by some technological problem, call it the only blocker to solving aids and cancer and take away a billion dollars in funding over decades and show nothing of actual consequence. Like the entire protein folding field. It's a tool. Not the soluti…

I've been working my way towards a biololgy degree very slowly (can only really fit one-class-at-a-time alongside working full time). I'm maybe 70% to a bachelor's degree in it. Been writing code for ages, but I've saved enough to accept a lower salary if it means I get to work on a real problem for once in my life. So I guess I'm one of those people you're frustrated with.

Do you have any advice for how to not be that kind of problem? For now I'm just focusing on my coursework, but at some point I'll be biologist-enough to help out with research. How do I approach it without being that guy?

Re: I should have loved biology too

#73

Post by Feynuus » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 7:45 PM UTC

I had always thought of biology as 'less rigorous' than the other sciences, and consequently less deserving of merit than, say, physics (my major). Less mathematical, not as rigorous, purely memorization devoid of deep understanding,.

It took me a while to shed that view.

1. There's an inherent charm and beauty to biology, and the ability to memorise is a skill.

2. The many different sub-disciplines of biology demonstrate the level of complexity that the field demands. And, even if it isn't as 'rigorous' as physics, do we denounce experimentalists because theoretical physicists exist? They simply serve as distinct, but crucial, parts of a chain.

Re: I should have loved biology too

#74

Post by svat » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 7:51 PM UTC

throwaway5752 wrote: post #12

I am sure the author is a fine person, but this is an incredibly self-entitled piece. A number of biologists managed to make it through these classes just fine, and are paid much less for pursuing their passion (and making the breakthroughs the author enjoys reading about while on vacation). A title like "I wish I had enough attention to get through the boring parts of high school biology, I now find pop biology inte…

The post is not about becoming a professional academic/researcher in biology, so it's not clear why your comments (this and the earlier deleted one) focus on competency, calling the author "not cut out for biology", etc.

The post is simply about what you call enough attention to get through the boring parts of high school biology — should biology in school be only for those who have that ability? Even if being a professional biologist requires those attributes, shouldn't the teaching of the science of life—which is full of wonder—have a bit of something for everyone else too? Even people who don't become biologists ought to love biology, surely?

That's what the post (like the earlier one by Somers) is about; it's not about “I could have become a biologist” (as you seem to be implying). You can call it pop biology, but it's missing from school where “astonishing facts were presented without astonishment”. I see nothing self-entitled about this.

It's the same in mathematics, say: even if being a professional mathematician requires (say) thinking long and hard and being willing to struggle with difficult problems, manipulating things in one's head, etc — surely there is value in exposing more students to pop mathematics / beautiful results (enjoying which is very different from actually doing mathematics, sure), so that more people could love mathematics recreationally, whether or not they become professional ones?

The other top-level thread that talks about how this happens in CS education too (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43764315) seems to get the point of the post: it's the equivalent of Lockhart's A Mathematician’s Lament (https://worrydream.com/refs/Lockhart_2002_-_A_Mathematician'... ).

Re: I should have loved biology too

#75

Post by shortrounddev2 » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 8:01 PM UTC

Suppafly wrote: post #45

TinyRick wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to do something like this but simply cannot afford it. I think it is good advice but going back to school for a degree one does not plan on utilizing is not as feasible today as it was in the 80's, largely due to the sizeable increase in tuition without reciprocal increases in wages.

>I would love to do something like this but simply cannot afford it. Work for a company that will pay for it.

I can't imagine why a company would pay an engineer to get a masters degree in biology

Re: I should have loved biology too

#76

Post by abdullahkhalids » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 8:01 PM UTC

searine wrote: post #16

pixl97 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Things like Math and engineering are all rigid and rules based Depends where in math, in things like particle physics things get all wibbly wobbly is my cat dead or alive. In things like engineering quite often what you're dealing with is probability based, but you just stack the deck so far in your favor the probability is 1. As they say, building a bridge that doesn't fall down is easy. Building a bridge that bar…

Not saying those fields don't have uncertainty, but I've never seen an physicist pray to Newton that gravity works this time when the ball drops. I have seen molecular biologists (jokingly) shake the voodoo "molecular biology maracas" over the PCR machine to try and replicate their result.

A lot of experimental and applied physics operates this way. If you are synthesizing material, for example, it takes a lot of time and effort to get high yields of what you want. Before that your processes can be very probabilistic.

In fact, just finished listening to a talk where a experimentalist was talking about how to get the fabrication yields of superconducting qubits from currently low double digit to 99.99+.

Re: I should have loved biology too

#77

Post by nightpool » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 8:08 PM UTC

slicktux wrote: post #29

kleiba wrote: post #2

A while ago, I taught CS for a year in a local high school. I can very much relate to the notion of "astonishing facts were presented without astonishment": as a teacher, you don't have the freedom to teach whatever you want (of course), but you're very tightly bound to a curriculum that's developed by the state government. And for CS, this curriculum was so uninteresting and uninspiring (what a surprise: 13 year old…

I think the whole teaching the history of computers is a big failure at an attempt to Segway into computer organization and architecture. Nonetheless, I get what is happening. If it’s a pure Computer programming class then the goal maybe to have them understand the “basics”…like what is the hard drive vs RAM (memory allocation) or what is a transistor (Boolean logic) and what is a punch card (mnemonics and abstractio…

(Unless you're riding a motorized vehicle, the word is segue, not Segway)

Re: I should have loved biology too

#78

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 8:12 PM UTC

slicktux wrote: post #29

kleiba wrote: post #2

A while ago, I taught CS for a year in a local high school. I can very much relate to the notion of "astonishing facts were presented without astonishment": as a teacher, you don't have the freedom to teach whatever you want (of course), but you're very tightly bound to a curriculum that's developed by the state government. And for CS, this curriculum was so uninteresting and uninspiring (what a surprise: 13 year old…

I think the whole teaching the history of computers is a big failure at an attempt to Segway into computer organization and architecture. Nonetheless, I get what is happening. If it’s a pure Computer programming class then the goal maybe to have them understand the “basics”…like what is the hard drive vs RAM (memory allocation) or what is a transistor (Boolean logic) and what is a punch card (mnemonics and abstractio…

[deleted]

Re: I should have loved biology too

#79

Post by dang » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 8:12 PM UTC

I should have loved biology - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32035054 - July 2022 (271 comments)

I should have loved biology - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25136422 - Nov 2020 (298 comments)

Re: I should have loved biology too

#80

Post by searine » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 8:15 PM UTC

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #76

searine wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not saying those fields don't have uncertainty, but I've never seen an physicist pray to Newton that gravity works this time when the ball drops. I have seen molecular biologists (jokingly) shake the voodoo "molecular biology maracas" over the PCR machine to try and replicate their result.

A lot of experimental and applied physics operates this way. If you are synthesizing material, for example, it takes a lot of time and effort to get high yields of what you want. Before that your processes can be very probabilistic. In fact, just finished listening to a talk where a experimentalist was talking about how to get the fabrication yields of superconducting qubits from currently low double digit to 99.99+.

Man, just let me have this.

Biology is messy at a macro level is all I'm saying. I don't need a hundred people butting in saying "butt aschully phsyix and code is also messy and harder at a quantum level." I know. We know.