Knowledge

* What knowledge have you made connections with during this semester of Biochemistry?

It is as of yet, early in the semester, but we have already covered so much material. One of the topics that I have personally found most interesting is "RNA-World Theory". The source for this theory are the class notes and the class text. (Campell & Farrell, 2010). This theory looks at the origin of the world in light of the big bang theory and early earth chemistry shown in the fossil geological record.

The premise of the theory is that the basic atomic atoms started to form and then degraded into the elements over time. This scenario gives the earth the building blocks that it would need for life, especially H2O. When looking at a pool of resources, one must speculate that a series of basic elements must be able to be induced, by available means such as solar winds, electrical charges, etc. to form more complex molecules. The first and most important chemicals were theorized to be phospho-lipids, which could and do make enclosed spherical membranes when exposed to water. It is in this small enclosed vesicle that the first self replicating molecules that could perform limited catalyzation must have arose, or so the theory goes.(Calvalier-Smith, Origin of Mitochondria, 2006) DNA was one molecule that was theorized to have been this potential unit of life. Protein was another. DNA turns out to only have coding abilities and protein turns out to have only catalytic abilities. RNA, however, has been found in laboratory test to have both. RNA could have encoded and catalyzed its own replication. This way of looking at the early earth is a powerful view of how life could have come from seemingly nothing.(Futuyma, 2010, Evolution Text) According to Futuyma, 2010, once you have a coded replicateable molecule, natural selection could take hold over a vast number of years. Say a couple of billion years for starter and then "wham" you have basic life, or something close to that account.(Calvalier-Smith, Origin of Mitochondria, 2006)

When this type of basic first step theory is laid out in a realistic stepwise manor and it is tempered with enough time, it can make for a good argument. No one alive today was present at the beginning of the earth's history, this we know with absolute certainty, except possibly god; that begs the question "where were god's beginnings and who or what was present for that moment and how could all of this something come from nothing". The point is that we can never know with absolute certainty what happened billions of years ago, but it is the job of science to ask appropriate questions about the origins, no matter how uncomfortable that makes "some" people. I happen to list myself as one of the "people" who was uncomfortable with this type of questioning. I will say that the benefit of a biological education is the slow stepwise process that helps to bring ones understanding of these complex topics, such as evolution, into focus very slowly and most importantly without the non-science noise that is present in real world debates/arguments on these subjects. We are not in theology school, we did not sigh up for theology school and it is not our job to act as if we had. In closing, I see more clearly that it is not the job of science to make contact with god, nor prove an omnipotent creators case for existence. This task of proving this case would be for an omnipotent creator and/or the various theologians of the world, not your average nor extraordinary, for that matter, scientist to make. I do not wish to sound sarcastic, being of "faith" myself, it is just that I feel that I understand the role of science more clearly today and no longer with for science to apologize for doing what its most basic charters would mandate it to do. (Personal opinion)

MCB