Questions

Ok, this is more an essay I had to write for college a few years back, but I'd love to have a discussion with someone about these questions.

 

I’m not very good at assessing what or how much I learn but I am always asking questions.  I’ve noticed that the more I understand about a subject, the deeper my questions are.  This past semester, I decided to write down my questions.  Then this assignment came along and I realized that these questions were the perfect way to evaluate what I’ve learned.

Viruses are not cells and are not made of cells.  Neither can they reproduce by themselves.  According to that, they are not alive.  Is that why we cannot cure viruses?  This was the first question I thought up in Bio I.  We were discussing the characteristics of living things.  I had also been through three years of a health course in high school so I knew quite a bit about viruses and bacterial infections.  It’s well known that bacteria are destroyed relatively easily but you have to suffer through a viral infection.  When we began discussing the characteristics of life in Biology last semester, I realized that, according to those characteristics, viruses are not living entities.  That got me thinking.  Can we not kill them because they aren’t alive?  I know this dispute is occurring between scientists today but it seems to me that the reason we are unable to cure viruses is because they aren’t alive to begin with.  It’s like trying to kill a rock.  You can’t kill what’s not alive.  But then you get to the other side.  Viruses do reproduce they just need a host.  They seem to have some vague intelligence consisting of “FIND HOST: REPRODUCE” almost like a robot.  Yet all they seem to be is a sac of DNA or RNA.  Is that really the basis of life?  If you classify viruses as living than you have problems justifying abortion.  And that’s where I stop thinking because it’s off subject.  So basically I view viruses as nonliving because they can’t be killed without entering into genetic warfare against them and I’m pretty sure they would win that.

We are able fold proteins. We flip the fat in WOW chips.  How close are we to Kurt Vonaguts vision in Cat’s Cradle?  This was another question thought up in Bio.  Dr. Maurstad was going over prions and protein folding and how they flipped the fat in WOW chips to make it indigestible to humans and so it is better for you.  I had read Cat’s Cradle in English III Pre-AP in high school.  Basically it’s about a scientist who finds a way to “stack” water molecules so that they are in a solid state, basically ice, at normal temperature.  Of course this messes up the whole world.  But talking about folding and unfolding proteins got me thinking.  If we are able to do this with proteins, how far away are we from stacking water molecules?  Then I think, surely we aren’t that stupid.  What is the point of mucking about with the molecular bonds of the substance we most need for life?  Would it even occur to scientists to do such an irresponsible thing?  Then I come to my senses and realize they’re human!  We, as a race, are entirely too inquisitive for our own good!  I mean what’s the point of mucking about with atoms in the first place?  But we’ve already managed to harness their power in the form of weapons more destructive than anything our twisted little minds can imagine.  So I worry that Vonagut’s vision is entirely too close at hand.

Why are plants green?  If they were any other color, would they absorb light as well?  Do the different wavelengths of light have different amounts of energy?  If plants were black, absorbing all light, would they work better?  Another question asked during Biology.  Obviously, we were discussing plants and how they photosynthesis.  I wasn’t really asking why plants are green but more why are they green?  What’s the point of having them green?  I know they have chloroform and chlorophyll and chloroplasts and all that that make them green, but why are plants green and not, say red?  Is there something about the particular wavelength of light absorbed by green-hued plants that enable photosynthesis?  If plants absorbed all wavelengths of visible light, would that be a good thing, or a bad thing?  I don’t even know enough about plants to make a decent guess.  Although, in Bio II this semester, we just went over the different algae, which are not plants but still photosynthesis.  Dr. Moury said something about red algae being red because they lived so deep they needed the extra pigment to absorb enough sunlight.  That would seem to back up my hypothesis but I’m not sure I understood him correctly.

Noble gases pull in their electrons tighter because they are more strongly positive.  This makes the atoms smaller, denser.  Black holes pull in matter tightly.  Are they positive and matter negative? Or are they negative and matter positive?  Finally, a Chemistry question.  Well I suppose this one is more astronomy, but it was inspired by a chemistry class.  We were going over trends in the periodic table when this one occurred to me.  The only problem is my understanding of black holes is rather weak so I may be way off.  I was thinking, though, that if this were true, that would mean gravity was just an electric charge.  Gravitation is defined as a natural force of attraction that tends to draw bodies together and that occurs because of the mass of the bodies.  This general definition allows for my theory, that gravity is electrical charge.  It just means that every body in the universe has a charge and the larger the body, the larger the charge.  But then that theory causes problems because you need two different charges to attract and two of the same charges to repel so I’m not really sure how that would work.

Archaea ribosomal DNA is more closely related to Eukarya than to Eubacteria.  Does that mean that if the Eukaryotes die off, it will be the Archaea that evolve into higher species?  This question was thought up in Dr. Moury’s Bio II class this semester.  He was discussing evolution and how the Archaea, or the extremeophiles, are actually more closely related to us than to other bacteria.  Would that mean that whatever adaptation they have that allows them to survive in volcanic trenches, deep sea vents, and wherever else would allow them to survive, oh say, nuclear war or an asteroid’s impact?  If so, would their descendants become the next sentient species?  What is it that allows them to survive such extremes anyways?  This idea really intrigues me.

Scientists have yet to find the missing link between ancient and modern man.  Does that mean ancient man evolved and modern man was “created?”  Okay, this last one gets theological and wasn’t really thought up in any of my classes but talking about evolution in Bio II reminded me of this question.  I read somewhere, either in National Geographic or a high school Bio book that the evolutionary link between modern and ancient man has yet to be found.  This has been aptly named “The Missing Link.”  I read in National Geographic that artifacts from ancient man have been found in burial mounds of modern man and artifacts of modern man have been found in burial mounds of ancient man.  This would suggest that they lived at the same time.  Yet, there is no evolutionary, genetic link between the two.  It is my thought that perhaps primates evolved to a certain point, then God, Gaia, Allah, Adonai, Elohim, Jehovah, Ra, Zeus, Jupiter, or whatever you call the Big Kahuna, created what we term, Modern Man.  Modern man then out competed, out thought, and generally out survived so dubbed Ancient Man.  This might seem like fence sitting but it makes more sense to me than either theory alone.  If you think about it, we know for a fact that evolution occurred, is occurring, and will occur.  This means that a strictly creation based theory is flat out wrong.  On the other hand, if you want to think you evolved from pond scum, be my guest.  As for me, I think I’ll stick with my theory.  And if you’re wondering, yes I am Christian but with Paganistic tendencies and a mind too open for my own good.

So, as you can see, I have learned some.  I need to learn more but that goes for everyone.  Going over these questions, I would have to say I have learned quite a bit since I started here.  I don’t really expect any of these questions to ever be answered, especially considering the fact they’re way too off the wall to ever be considered but who knows.  Only time will tell.