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 Biochem, and other useful sciences

 Author:  Topic:  Posted:
Nov 13, 2001
 Comments:
I had my first Medical Biochem test today. I don't know if I have ever had such a love/hate relationship with a subject (chemistry in general, biochem in specific).
diaries

More diaries by First Incision
What's in my name?
An Afternoon Downtown
First Incision, American Television Viewer, Condemns
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A request for a book review
My TV crush
The Air Force
A quote for the readers of Adequacy
Hollywood has lied to me
New Toys
Thomas Kinkade vs. RMS
My newfound non-conformity
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The recession can't touch me!
Cold Turkey
She's not my queen!
Imagination
Thomas Kinkade: Jigsaw Review
My brush with a playmate
Playmate update
Biblical sexiness
"The Blinding Dawn" or "Breakfast at PizzaHut
The Caffeine Fix
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*END* IP Token
The US Civil War
Have a Solemn Lent
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God and High Society
[I am saddened that] the Hypermints are gone.
You have broken my will
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Operation Enduring Uptime
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Fire
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Snoozing through Star Wars
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Voting
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A Down Home 4th of July
A question for the atheists
A dream of Communism and porno
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My Day at the Monestary
On nations and ethic groups
I have been thinking about the "evolution thing" recently, and have been discussing it with friends, because it a current topic down here. Alabama is considering removing the infamous disclaimer sticker from its text books. Imagine my surprise when I find evolution is Adequacy's current Hot Topic.

I think that if the teacher were to actually give the students a good base in the scientific method, this whole sticker controversy would be unnecessary. Having lived my whole life around products of the Alabama school system, not many graduate with a firm understanding of how science works, the distinctions between a strongly supported hypothesis, a theory, and scientific dogma.

Many of the stuff we were taught and were tested on in biochem today is on much shakier ground than natural selection, or even macroevolution. Yet we don't need a disclaimer on every page saying Scientists may be wrong about this metabolic pathway. No one can actually see what is going on between the two layers of a mitochondria. In fact, 10 years from now, 25% of this will be proven wrong anyway. It would double the size of the book.

I am reminded of my former Governor's monkey dancing antics. I think a lot of people just aren't comfortable with the assertation that humans descended from apes or ape-like creatures. Well, evolutionary biology and related sciences help us extrapolate results from experiments on monkeys to humans. This allows us to make better drugs and medical procedures. Yes, scientists do nasty things like hurt monkeys. Deal with it.


Thinking outside the box. (none / 0) (#1)
by em on Wed Nov 14th, 2001 at 12:33:18 AM PST
Well, evolutionary biology and related sciences help us extrapolate results from experiments on monkeys to humans. This allows us to make better drugs and medical procedures

"Better" is not the objective concept you seem to think it is. The scientists have ideologies about what is "better" which are rooted in the post-Enlightenment philosophy which constitutes the bourgeois understanding of reality. I'm sorry, but I don't want to be tied down to a bed when I'm 120 years old, being tortured by whatever drug coctail is fashionable 80 years from now, making the drug industry a pretty penny by being old and miserable (which their ad campaigns will label "longevity").

And, why do you claim it is evolution and not just phenotypic and genotypic similarity that allows the extrapolation?
--em
Associate Editor, Adequacy.org


Longevity (none / 0) (#4)
by Mendax Veritas on Wed Nov 14th, 2001 at 01:09:29 PM PST
The currently-popular notion that a longer life is a better life probably stems from a pathological fear of death. I suppose the diminution of the role of religion in many people's lives has something to do with this, although it's arguable that an honest fear of death (however pathetic that may be) is preferable to building one's world-view around a patently delusional theology.

However, there is another, far better alternative. It is unlike the above choices in that it is neither fearful nor delusional. It also requires actual work, as opposed to merely cowering in fear or putting your trust in phantoms, which partially accounts for its unpopularity, along with the unfortunate fact that most of the people who try it fail. That better alternative is, to put it quite simply and in classical terms, to become enlightened.

Your move.


 
oh, and something that i overlooked... (none / 0) (#2)
by em on Wed Nov 14th, 2001 at 12:36:46 AM PST
...the use of the word "useful" in your title.

"Usefulness" is not a property of objects. It is a relation between a subject and an object. By calling a science "useful", you are effecting an ideological operation that renders invisible the subject who finds that science useful.

So let's name that subject, please: THE BOURGEOISIE.
--em
Associate Editor, Adequacy.org


 
Alabama's sticker (5.00 / 1) (#3)
by Mendax Veritas on Wed Nov 14th, 2001 at 10:24:34 AM PST
Alabama is considering removing the infamous disclaimer sticker from its text books... I think that if the teacher were to actually give the students a good base in the scientific method, this whole sticker controversy would be unnecessary... not many graduate with a firm understanding of how science works, the distinctions between a strongly supported hypothesis, a theory, and scientific dogma.
I think you misunderstand the purpose of the Alabama sticker. It isn't intended to draw a distinction between "scientifically proven" and "working hypothesis". The distinction it really intends to make is between "what a bunch of godless secular humanists think" and "Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-3".

The whole concept that truth might not be etched in stone for all eternity is completely foreign to the people who put that sticker there. Asking them to understand the difference between an experimentally-verifiable theory and a hypothesis is unreasonable.

And what, by the way, is a "scientific dogma"? My dictionary says that a dogma is something that is considered to be "absolutely true". I am probably being idealistic here, but I thought everything in science was at least potentially subject to revision based on future experimental results, which would imply that "scientific dogma" is an oxymoron.
Yes, scientists do nasty things like hurt monkeys. Deal with it.
You're rather cavalierly glossing over a difficult ethical issue here, presumably because your academic training has been guided by representatives of the viewpoint that humans can do anything they want and who cares about a bunch of dumb animals anyway. Try thinking outside the box once in a while; it's good for you.

The usual defense, which you more or less stated in your article, is that while it's regrettable that we have to cause animals pain, the benefits to humanity are worth it. Of course, the humans who decide that it's justified are a subset of the humans who benefit; this sort of situation is commonly called a "conflict of interest" in other contexts. You wouldn't want the judge who hears your lawsuit to be in a position to benefit from you losing the case, would you?

More fundamental, however, is the question of whether there really is any net benefit to humanity for many experiments. The more obvious examples would be in the cosmetics industry, where substances that have no real benefit to humanity (unless the vanity of women is really that important, which I don't think is the case) are routinely tested on animals. Oh, this mascara causes blindness if it drips into a rabbit's eye? Better not put it on the market, then.

But even more medically-relevant experiments may be of questionable value in the long term. Let's say you're trying to find a cure for a deadly bacterial infection. Over a period of several years, you intentionally infect hundreds of monkeys with the disease, inject them with various drugs, and watch (not, one hopes, gleefully) to see whether the disease or the drugs kill the monkeys first, or whether the monkey recovers. Let's further say that eventually you do find a drug that cures the infection in monkeys, and also works nicely in subsequent human trials. So, after FDA approval and whatnot, your drug gets on the market and people start taking it and getting cured. But, of course, after a while you start getting reports that the bacteria in the wild is developing a resistance to your drug, and people are dying again. Your drug has had a favorable short-term effect, but a necessary side-effect of that was to breed a stronger bacteria. Eventually, this stronger bacteria will take over more or less completely from the old non-resistant strain, and your drug will be useless.

So what we see here is that it isn't a simple matter of killing a few hundred monkeys in order to permanently rid humanity of a deadly disease. In reality, you killed a few hundred monkeys to buy a brief respite, like ancient Incas sacrificing virgins to the volcano god. The whole hideous process will have to be repeated every so often to develop new drugs to deal with new strains that are resistant to the old treatments. And also like the Incas, you have no guarantee of success; how many animals have died in the quest for a cure for cancer or the common cold? This clearly alters, for the worse, the cost/benefit ratio. A cheap jackboot response like "Scientists do nasty things, deal with it" trivializes the whole problem.

Personally, I accept that medical experiments on animals benefits us enough to keep doing them, although I could never participate in such actions because I'm simply not cruel or heartless enough to be willing to subject an animal to such suffering. But I would have no objection to banning medically-useless experiments, such as those related to cosmetics. If that means cosmetics will be unsafe, fine; any woman who values her life more than her painted-on beauty can do without them.


My apologies for the "deal with it" (none / 0) (#5)
by First Incision on Wed Nov 14th, 2001 at 03:47:18 PM PST
My terse remark at the end was more of a result of sleepiness than anything. I was in a bad mood, unwilling to type more words. I knew I was going to get trashed for it, but after several days of cramming I was ready to go to sleep.

Were you using the American Heritage dictionary to look up the definition of dogma? I usually like it, but it seemed to let us down here. Ol' M-Webster defines it more broadly as "something held as an established opinion."

I don't know a good definition of scientific dogma, but I know some examples, mostly in cell biology. A good example of dogma is "All metabolic pathways in the cell are highly regulated." The idea is that if reactions were allowed to operate wide open, with no controls, you would get large amounts of byproducts when you don't need them, or run out of chemicals at the wrong times. Regulatory controls have been found at many steps in the metabolic pathways. But not at all have been found. And not all pathways are fully understood. So there's no empirical evidence that all are regulated, other than the fact that people don't usually die from the buildup of toxic metabolites.

On the value of animal subjects versus the value of scientific discovery: I've heard endless arguments for animal rights. When I was making my decision to cut my meat intake to Thanksgiving turkey, and Ind. Day steak, I read a lot of literature on vegetarianism. Most of it at least had one chapter on animal rights. I realized that there is some philosophical gap between me and people that stress over the pain of animals (probably as wide as the gap between myself and Biblical literalists). I think this might be because my family and I have never owned pets.
_
_
Do you suffer from late-night hacking? Ask your doctor about Protonix.

Re: apology (none / 0) (#6)
by Mendax Veritas on Thu Nov 15th, 2001 at 12:26:16 AM PST
Were you using the American Heritage dictionary to look up the definition of dogma?
Yes, that's my favorite USian dictionary too. Though I also have an OED, albeit it wasn't within reach when I was writing.
I don't know a good definition of scientific dogma, but I know some examples, mostly in cell biology. A good example of dogma is "All metabolic pathways in the cell are highly regulated."
That seems more like something that you believe because it seems to be a requirement based on your present understanding of the system under discussion, as opposed to something that is true because someone in authority said so. I wouldn't use the word "dogma" for that, but if scientists want to be uncharacteristically sloppy (or self-satirical?) with their nomenclature by calling it that, well, that's their business, I guess.
When I was making my decision to cut my meat intake to Thanksgiving turkey, and Ind. Day steak, I read a lot of literature on vegetarianism. Most of it at least had one chapter on animal rights.
Animal rights as a political issue really doesn't interest me. What are we going to do, give dogs the vote? I don't think so. I don't really see anything I'm saying as "animal rights". My real concern is for the effects of animal experimentation on the human population. I think you can readily see, for example, that a society that condoned medical experimentation on humans would have to be severely desensitized to human suffering, and the scientists who performed the experiments would have to be completely without human empathy, at least during business hours. Now extend that thought with a recognition (for the sake of argument, at least) that animals, while they may fall short of us in the intellectual domain, are living creatures with emotions and natural desires, just as we are. Does an acceptance of their imprisonment and suffering not imply an essentially identical, though perhaps more subtle, desensitization? And can that possibly be a good thing in the long term, even if it benefits us in material ways?

Vegetarianism also doesn't interest me. I probably eat more meat than a nutritionist would say I should. Fortunately my metabolism still burns most of it off, so I'm not overweight even in my mid-30s. As a "moral" issue, I think vegetarianism is just silly. We're omnivores by nature; meat is part of our diet. If it's wrong for us to kill to eat, then it's wrong for tigers too, and I'd love to see you talk one of them into vegetarianism. (And besides, plants are alive too; what's the difference between slaughtering a cow for meat and pulling a carrot out of the ground?)
I realized that there is some philosophical gap between me and people that stress over the pain of animals... I think this might be because my family and I have never owned pets.
Sounds reasonable. Growing up with dogs in the house (not just in the backyard), I found that in many ways having one around wasn't that different from having an extra person in the family. Labrador retrievers, in particular, are very easy to understand on an emotional level. They want to be liked, they love to play, and they get quite depressed if you're angry with them, as if they know they've done something wrong and feel very disappointed with themselves. Living with one is a lot like living with a three-year-old. So I think you've just provided some good anectodal evidence in favor of my argument above, that one must be desensitized to suffering to perform or condone medical experimentation on animals.


desensitization (none / 0) (#7)
by First Incision on Fri Nov 16th, 2001 at 03:06:12 PM PST
I think you are hitting on something very important, with your talk about desensitization.

As a biology major, I did experimentation on live animals (although every animal I worked with was anesthetized). People don't cut breathing rats on the first day. You work up to it in little steps. First you get used to handling them, then you inject them with saline, then you inject them with anesthetic, etc.

When I started medical school, there is a very systematic and insidious desensitization process. Physicians have to deal with suffering, see it every day. Often we have to cause suffering in order to acheive a long term benefit. In various ways, in different classes, we had to work extensively with cadavers, we were show videos people in horrible pain, a video of monkeys having their heads smashed by a mechanical hammer, and we were shown pictures of absolutely horrendous birth defects.

People rarely talked about these things. Nobody ever showed any signs that they were bothered. I think everyone recognized that some desensitization is necessary before we go out on the wards, and we are just trudging through it.
_
_
Do you suffer from late-night hacking? Ask your doctor about Protonix.

quite true (none / 0) (#8)
by nathan on Fri Nov 16th, 2001 at 03:34:02 PM PST
Dissasociation is the only way that a surgeon could possibly bear his job. I take my hat off in commendation to those determined souls.

Nathan
--
Li'l Sis: Yo, that's a real grey area. Even by my lax standards.

 
Desensitization (none / 0) (#9)
by Mendax Veritas on Fri Nov 16th, 2001 at 11:18:32 PM PST
When I started medical school, there is a very systematic and insidious desensitization process. Physicians have to deal with suffering, see it every day. Often we have to cause suffering in order to acheive a long term benefit.
Certainly. If you handed me a scalpel and asked me to cut open a living person's body, I doubt I could do it. Even if I managed, I'd probably end by throwing up. A degree of desensitization is clearly necessary for that sort of work. Even an experienced policeman is more likely than a doctor to throw up on seeing a brutally-murdered corpse.

However, there is a dark side to it, as well. The lack of sensitivity that allows one to be a surgeon or an emergency room doctor can also allow one to do terrible things. As an extreme example, it is considered highly probable that Jack the Ripper was a trained surgeon, based on the skill he showed in slicing up his victims.

An important part of moral judgment is the ability to see things from someone else's point of view, to really empathize deeply with them. This is, for example, what the Golden Rule is all about; "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is simply the prescriptive formularization of a conversation that every child has with its parents and teachers throughout childhood:
"Would you want someone doing this [whatever this is] to you?"
"No."
"Then imagine how they feel when you do it to them. Is that a nice thing to do?"
"No."
So by saying that the medical profession intentionally trains its members not to empathize, in essence, you're saying that students are taught, fundamentally, to not understand morality -- to cease to be morally-conscious individuals. For doctors dealing with patients, this primarily manifests in the form of rapacious fees and inattentiveness (it has been observed by many writers that the average doctor seems to think he needs a new Mercedes more than you need your life), but it's quite another matter with lab researchers working with animals. Unfettered by moral concerns or even simple empathy for the suffering of living creatures, researchers intentionally subject thousands of animals every year to painful, drawn-out deaths in the pursuit of knowledge. Now, if this were done with people... well, it has been done. It was called a "crime against humanity". But if it's monkeys, dogs, and rodents, well, nobody cares about crimes against them, do they.

I think the most interesting thing you've posted to date is this bit:
... we were shown ... a video of monkeys having their heads smashed by a mechanical hammer...
The first time I read that, I thought you had to be violating our no-trolling rule. But I think you're really serious. Someone actually set up a mechanical hammer, intentionally smashed live monkeys' heads in with it, filmed the whole thing... and neither you nor your professors see anything wrong with it.


Anyone still out there (none / 0) (#10)
by First Incision on Mon Nov 19th, 2001 at 09:24:05 PM PST
I don't know if you are still reading this, I just came back to this, after forgetting about this thread for a couple days. But everybody recognizes the trouble with the thin line between desensitization and empathy. A physician needs to be especially in-tune to the feelings of his/her patient, yet must be able to block out emotional responses to the patient's pain. This dichotomy has been central to medical practice for as long as it has existed. But the monkey video wasn't shown as you assumed. It was shown during our Medical Ethics class, during a lecture on animal subjects. It's a somewhat famous video, and was shown to Congress in the 80's, and caused a big controversy. Here's some info on it. Incidentally, if you read that link I gave you, it talks about car-crash tests on animals (that's what the monkey experiments were simulating), and what companies do and don't do animal experimentation. Something it doesn't mention, and that few people know, is that cadavers are used in car-crash tests. All I know, is that if I donate my body to science (hopefully, they can harvest my organs), I want it to be used for dissection, not car crashes, and definitely NOT for a pagan mummy experiment.
_
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Do you suffer from late-night hacking? Ask your doctor about Protonix.

 

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