New posting! A more whimsical one this time: students reach molecular biology from a variety of sources, but what if we started them off from it instead? What if we went from universality to diversity, instead of the other way around?👇
https://totalinternalreflectionblog.com/2026/06/30/terms-of-empowerment/
@stevegis_ssg - love it! That's taking things a step further, but why not? Travelling from universality to diversity is a much more appealing direction for structured learning, I think.
@TIR_scienceblog that's an interesting idea. I wonder though: if we start with the fundamentals, it's too far a journey (DNA->RNA->protein, proteins are e.g. enzymes that do something interesting) before there's something tangible? In physics, you learn about a waveform and then you can be at an oscilloscope hearing sounds a few minutes later. Same with chemistry, the destination is only one step (not a whole term of lectures) away.
@TIR_scienceblog
I once got to give a one-day overview of modern biology (!) to someone with a Masters in astrophysics. (for a teaching cert) It was glorious because I could start from electronegativity and the structure of water, and then all the rest of it made sense.