Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/02/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Good insights--not rant thanks for the share ric On Feb 9, 2012, at 1:29 PM, Aram Langhans wrote: > I have enjoyed reading this thread. The issue is important and also > points out how our society reacts to science and medicine. When I retired > from teaching full time at the HS level, I started teaching a summer > biology class for non-majors at the local community college. It has been > a lot of fun, and way different than my advanced high school classes. A > bit more than a year ago, my closest friend for about 30 years was > diagnosed with brain cancer, and it was not good. He was given a 20% > chance of living 6 months and he made 7. But the last few he was > essentially not there. This was after aggressive rounds of chemo and > radiation. His wife, naturally so, was distraught with the diagnosis and > the treatments. She cared for him at home until he died, and she was also > caring for her mother with dementia, who died 6 months later. Lots of > stress. > > At times she would make comments akin to; we can land a man on the moon > but.... We have all heard those kinds of statements. It got me thinking, > and I posed the following question to my science class last summer. "What > do you expect from science?" It was an interesting discussion. I was > surprised. I had previously tried this question on other friends and > relations, and I got quite a lot of them expecting science to have a cure > or solution for whatever ailed them, be it medical or technological. > There's a pill for that. There's an ap for that... So, I was expecting > my class to put a lot of expectations into what they thought science could > do, but in my class I did not get much of that. Even though they were not > science majors, most had a better idea of what science was all about than > the general public in my previous sample. But, then again, this was the > best class I have had in the three years I have been teaching it. I plan > on using this again this summer, if I get a chance to teach the class > again. It points out that not many people really know what science can > and cannot do, and how the process of science works. How complex some > things are, yet we tend to learn very oversimplified views in early > science classes and the media certainly does not correct that view. Gene > for X discovered, cure around the corner. > > The human genome project was supposed to answer all our questions. Well, > as any scientist knows, the more you learn, the more you don't know. For > every question you answer, it poses three or four more. Now we are seeing > the possible roles for all that so-called "junk DNA", and we are seeing > the complex nature of RNA, gene regulation, epigenetics, and the list > goes on. > > Sorry for my ranting. I just thought it related to the issue of prostrate > cancer. > > > Aram > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information