3 ms·

The idea that biologists have difficulty with abstractions probably reflects the “solidity” of modern molecular biology. Biologists were doing genetics, working

The idea that biologists have difficulty with abstractions probably reflects the “solidity” of modern molecular biology. Biologists were doing genetics, working out the rules of heredity, mapping genes onto chromosomes, understanding meiotic cross-over, for decades before the physical nature of the gene was understood. Likewise immunology is full of terms and factors that today have a biochemical explanation, but again, for years only existed as abstractions. Biology is much easier to understand today, now that we have molecules for almost everything. But biologists did decades of very insightful and productive work that was completely based on abstractions.

bonoboTP 2y ago
It's a bit like dropping a kid into programming without foundational courses on anything. They'll learn from the "outside inward". As I did, before doing a CS degree. 12 year old me knew Excel, so I understood function calls with parentheses are a thing, but didn't have any idea what programming really means, but built HTML+JavaScript pages through trial and error. I didn't know what compilation is, didn't understand that lines in the code are executed sequentially or in parallel. I could configure port redirects in the router to set up multiplayer games without understanding what "protocol" or "port" meant. Then at university I learned it all from the ground up, clearing many misconceptions. But my misconceptions also were helpful. When we learned about OpenMP, I remembered I had thought that "for" loops would run in parallel. And indeed it turns out it was possible to run them in parallel. Or I had misconceptions about pass-by-value and pass-by-reference but at least had a prepared mental framework for this when we formally learned about it. Biologists arrived at the scene similarly, without manuals or foundational courses handed over by God. So it had to start with this "competent ignorance" at first. You don't quite know what you're doing but it works. And then you figure out the building blocks.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  This comment and the one above hold more than a handful of nuggets of gold, mark my words!

bonoboTP 2y ago

It's a bit like dropping a kid into programming without foundational courses on anything. They'll learn from the "outside inward". As I did, before doing a CS degree. 12 year old me knew Excel, so I understood function calls with parentheses are a thing, but didn't have any idea what programming really means, but built HTML+JavaScript pages through trial and error. I didn't know what compilation is, didn't understand that lines in the code are executed sequentially or in parallel. I could configure port redirects in the router to set up multiplayer games without understanding what "protocol" or "port" meant. Then at university I learned it all from the ground up, clearing many misconceptions. But my misconceptions also were helpful. When we learned about OpenMP, I remembered I had thought that "for" loops would run in parallel. And indeed it turns out it was possible to run them in parallel. Or I had misconceptions about pass-by-value and pass-by-reference but at least had a prepared mental framework for this when we formally learned about it. Biologists arrived at the scene similarly, without manuals or foundational courses handed over by God. So it had to start with this "competent ignorance" at first. You don't quite know what you're doing but it works. And then you figure out the building blocks.

actionfromafar 2y ago
This comment and the one above hold more than a handful of nuggets of gold, mark my words!