Is there a possibility for ‘Theory of relativity’ for biology?
What I meant is not a ‘relative time’ reference for cells, but a theory as
revolutionary, creative and iconoclastic as the one postulated by Einstein in
1905. No such questions that require such a theory in biology comes to my mind.
Well, my be what is life? Again, it is my opinion that it is not actually a
biological problem. The real question is how one fine day some atoms decide to
collaborate to form ribonucleic acid and four of them chose to collaborate to
for a chain. Which in turn formed specific structure and start catalyzing
chemical reaction. It is a physics or chemistry problem in my mind. But there
is a potential for an elegant theory there, but it may not be a concise one.
I am reading about Albert Einstein now. It is not surprising to
know that he believes “The truly great advances in our understanding of nature
originated in a way almost diametrically opposed to induction. The intuitive
grasp of the essentials of a large complex of facts leads the scientist to the
postulation of a hypothetical basic law or laws. From these laws he derives his
conclusion.” Basically what one need is a thorough grasp on the chosen field of
study to understand what is the missing link or incorrectly placed information.
Then come up with a grand theory, not necessarily based on experimental data.
The experimental data may take time. But first thing needed is a vision. And
the precursor for the correct vision is deep knowledge.
The following quote I saw on a poster bought by AK very well
explain the philosophy of science and thinking of Einstein: “Imagination is
more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and
understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever
will be to know and understand.”
It is very evident that I
still need to find an important question to answer. Unfortunate that in such an
interesting biological world I am struggling to find interesting questions to
address. Keep reading. Keep listening. Keep questioning.
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