I should have loved biology: the lifeless recitation of names
James Somers argues that biology was taught as a lifeless recitation of names, robbing students of the astonishing questions at its core. He recounts how Avery's experiment on Streptococcus bacteria revealed nucleic acid as the transforming principle, and how understanding biology as physical shapes bumping into each other makes it come alive. He suggests learning biology through thin, deep slices and questions, like programming.
No one shook me by the shoulders, saying how crazy that was.
- ChaitanyaSai
We run a microschool and our single most important realization is this. We need to allow for meaning before mechanics. Schooling has a gravitational pull that inverts this because of our obsession with Measurement.
We learn, and we can learn relentlessly, when things matter. We are meaning makers. But when well-intentioned curriculum remove the process of making meaning and give you the final product, it just takes away reasons for learning. And no matter how we dress it up, this ends up staying shallow because it is only the surface level learning that is visible and measurable and held to account.
Meaning > Motivation > Mechanics > Measurement
This is the natural order we should try to preserve despite all the systemic pulls to measure as a poor proxy for asking "are we doing our job well"
Wrote about it here: https://blog.comini.in/p/schooling-has-a-meaning-crisis-para...
- noname123
This is a very romantic view of life sciences.
Speaking as a guy who made the pivot to research in life sciences (as a "data scientist") from "full stack software engineer", yes the data and mission is very sexy to a nerdy guy like myself, applying deep learning algorithms to spatial or epigenetic sequencing data of cancer cells to figure out the secret markers or mechanism of cancer cell mestasis or human immune response.
The realistic or unromantic view is you are a cog in the life science industrial complex where you are underpaid and under-appreciated; research often takes years and unclear if you are making progress or scamming the taxpayers like a humanities professor in women's studies (yes even STEM sometimes feels like that); and in computing, unlike tech, you are not the center of attention, most wet lab scientists treat you more like a resource, a grad student they need to make their pvalue or figure panel pop nicely versus a "full stack software engineer" - And if you don't like it, hundreds of thousands of post-doc's or grad students are waiting to take your place for their shot - not in pursing their passion but for a visa in America.
The real value I learned from my pivot from pivoting away from tech and pivoting into Biology is ironically how to gamble. I joined a Discord/Slack sub-channel for #options-trading, #sports-betting and #poker during my studies for a Masters in data science with other degenerate students who loved gambling, and how to identify, auto […]
- vipshek
This article is ostensibly about biology but it's really about pedagogy—how traditional education squeezes out the sense of discovery and turns many subjects into rote memorization exercises.
This reminds me of the pedagogical philosophy of Seymour Papert, who was heavily influenced by the ideas of Jean Piaget. Piaget's "genetic epistemology" argues that knowledge and understanding is created by interacting with environments, which traditional educational approaches fail to provide.
Papert combined Piaget's ideas with the emergence of computing to argue that children should be taught subjects in a hands-on, exploratory way - and not just for teaching computing! The idea is that by programming in simplified languages, children can discover ideas in subjects like mathematics and grammar - deriving them as they try to solve problems instead of having them dictated to them.
Suppose that biology was taught in a game-like environment where students were designing cells or organisms in some way. Maybe the game could be structured so that each organelle could be "discovered" by the student as they designed the cell to survive in some environment. Perhaps that'd make the purpose of each cell component more grounded and memorable.
Papert's book Mindstorms covers all this in detail, and I highly recommend reading it. I feel like it's especially important today given fears of how AI will affect childhood education. At best, I hope that computing can be a boon to education instead of a de […]
- MezzoDelCammin
Is there a tradition for this blog post to appear every 2 years?
2024, 253 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40103590
2022, 271 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32035054
2020, 298 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25136422
- fl4tul4
I should have studied a 'real' topic instead of computing, and then tackle issues therein (ie, in my chosen topic) using programming as a TOOL to help me realise things, and experiment.
All my career is about computing, for computing sake, now I find myself in trouble in this AI-driven world as I don't have a base to stand on, with interesting problems, and a lot of programming is just being 'generated' in a black-box.
And no, I'm not talking about becoming a major software ARCHITECT, solving deep infrastructure problems and whatnot. I'm thinking on day-to-day issues.
Whatever, just a minor rant - if it helps future generations realising that and change course, my job is done.
Cheerios
- teekert
I did always love biology, not because of my teachers, but because of my own wonder of it ("I sort of get how an engine works, but how do humans work?"). And I became a biologist, and thinking about the things this author describes indeed still blows my mind. I get the high level of a lot of things now, but every time I need to do a deep dive, I feel like "how the hell can this even work". But it works, and it works incredibly well. I still think it's the nicest field to be in (even though I love computers and Linux and FOSS as well).
- srean
This is one of those perennial HN favorites
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=I%20should%20have%20loved%20bi...
- janalsncm
Physics was like that as well, and from my limited experience chemistry too.
The history of physics and the theory of it is great. A Brief History of Time is an awesome read.
Studying physics is not like that. Studying formulas, applying them to situations, and of course very math heavy.
One thing I regret is the experiments as well. In physics and chemistry they were kind of a blur. Just following instructions and sometimes they didn’t work out and no one knew why. I never learned the most important thing: how to design an experiment. Following a long recipe then reading the result is much less useful than observing a thing, forming a testable, falsifiable hypothesis about that thing, and then testing it.
Last thing I’ll say is you probably aren’t going to get the “wonder” of science from a science class. Those classes are there to tell you the answers, but the most interesting part is discovering the answers yourself which is not possible in a one semester survey course.