Rotten eggs and you

There’s always something of interest in Science News. Today it was an article about the role of hydrogen sulfide in our metabolism. It seems that this (poisonous) gas is produced at the cellular level and regulates a lot of things such as insulin function and the effect of garlic on the heart. I read the whole article, reflexively zoning out at the more complex biochemical details, searching for any mention of what I had first thought on seeing the title—"Wow, that’s the basis of the metabolism of those deep sea vent critters! Maybe we’re related at some level!" Not a thing about that. OK, well Science News is Science, not Speculation, but I was disappointed nevertheless.

I wonder where we are going with the exponential increase in bio-scientific knowledge. There is no being more innately curious that the human ape. We are very good at opening the hood and tracing the wires. Scientists don’t accept black boxes—they must remove the back panel and start probing and testing. Isolate the variables, control those which you understand, determine which variables affect others, and observe the values of those which respond to the ones you are manipulating. Observation involves measurement and much of the increasing knowledge we are gaining about life is due to a tremendous increase in the power of resolution of the measurement. We can now observe and tinker with cells, molecules, even individual atoms (actually we can see the shadow of its energy spike, not the atom itself). Recombinant DNA, whether you approve of it or not, is a marvel of small-scale engineering. Amazing things are being accomplished, for better or worse. I wonder though whether the human brain at the level to which it has currently evolved is capable of taking in all the information necessary for scientific inquiry and still remain able to formulate a Big Picture. Science creates models of HtWW—How the World Works. Does anyone attempt to create WtWW pictures—Why the World Works?

This has traditionally been the role of our elder scientists. Einstein’s detailed scientific work was over when he published his relativity equations in 1905 at the age of 26; the rest of his long life was devoted to trying to make sense of this information and to helping the world make sense of it as well. Not too long ago I read an older work of E. O. Wilson’s—Consilience in which the prominent entomologist-turned-ethicist tries to lay out a program by which all sciences will merge and form a wholistic world view and system of inquiry that will take the human race to the next level. Although full of insights, this book published in 1998 is already out of date in many ways, especially ways concerning the assumed desire of scientists to even WANT to work together for the big picture. And I got the unfortunate impression that even 10 years ago, this greatly respected scientist was just shouting in the wind. The lay community (I define "lay" as anyone who does not make a living doing experimental science) is increasingly unable to communicate with the scientific community and vice-versa. And both increasingly ignore our elders, our prophets, those who have gained a big picture by tracing all the wires and lived to tell about it. Forty years ago I don’t think this ”debate” about the validity of global warming could have taken place—people then still respected science, science had not yet so often prostituted itself to corporate profit and it could be respected without question.

I love sitting around with my high school chemistry (and even less biology) and formulating grand theories of Life on Earth. It’s harmless, no one listens, but at least it is exercising my mind and at least I am making an attempt at some level to understand the Whole of it all. May we all try to do that—it’s indispensable. It's what we are here for. And maybe the biochemistry of the sea vent world still circulates in our inter-cellular fluids. You really are a tube worm.