Jack Szostak, 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (telomeres, telomerase), did a Q&A session in class Tuesday. He is currently trying to get biology to emerge from the physical and chemical. Genesis.
Sometimes a picture is all you need.
Jack Szostak, 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (telomeres, telomerase), did a Q&A session in class Tuesday. He is currently trying to get biology to emerge from the physical and chemical. Genesis.
Sometimes a picture is all you need.
One my aims is to persuade the students that humans have a lousy ability to judge how the world really is. Beliefs, impressions and intuitions are often wrong. Science is a way to do better. Erroneous impression detection correction (as it were) usually starts with systematic data collection.
Yesterday, our first guest instructor, Mary Beth Williams, talked about nanotechnology. She’s a chilli hot chemistry prof, and excellent for the students: like me, most of them have yet to recover from their chemistry ‘education’. Two comments came up on the comment wall which Mary Beth did not get time to answer. She does now:
1. Would people try to become God by spontaneously creating things with nano tech?
This is an enormously complex question because I think at the heart of it you are asking about scientific ethics. However no scientist can spontaneously create life. But do scientists, in general, create things that have the potential to impact living things around them? Yes. They make drugs that save lives, modify plants so that they grow in droughts, and discover how DNA encodes age with telomeres. Scientists, like everyone, have to make decisions about the ethical and moral implications of their work; in the context of scientific research, it is the potential outcomes and use of research – good and bad – that is the subject of these decisions and dilemmas. Moral and ethical decision making in science could be the subject of another course altogether….
2. If we drink the gold stuff [your nano solution] will we start laying golden eggs? or would we just have sparkly poop?
Well, we all know that what goes in must come out….one way or the other, although I doubt anyone in the room actually lays eggs of any sort. But if you were to drink the nanogold solution, remember that it’s red, not sparkly, and it would be a very, very small amount so it would not be worth it to pan for gold.
Also a hit with the class was the notion of nano-condoms. It’s amazing where nano particles are going. One of the students asked Mary Beth whether she would recommend them over Trojan. Nothing is sacred in my class.
There is something wrong with the students in this year’s class. Or me.
All up, 28 multiple choice questions covering the course so far and critical interpretation of a media report (this one: how to be alluring by tilting your head). My tests are live on-line for 24 hours, the students can take as long as they want in that window, take the test twice, and consult anything except each other…
Much to my surprise, and in complete contrast to last year (1, 2), the class did really well overall. Incredibly, three students got all questions right, never before achieved on any of my tests. Ever. The average mark was 83% (a low B), but the median (and mode) was an A. Over half the class (53 students) got an A. The rest: B, 27; C, 3; D, 4; Fail, 13, including 5 no shows. The only part of the test done consistently poorly was the part testing why good experiments give much stronger inference than is otherwise possible. I can easily teach that better.
So, bottom line, train smash avoided: 3/4 of the students are on track. The key challenge now is to get the remaining 1/4 there as well – while also stretching the majority. Mmmmm
And why did the class do SO much better than last year? The blogging standard this year seems higher too. Hard to imagine my teaching is substantially better (indeed, in class the students seem less responsive). I am using the same material, presenting it the same way, and the test questions were much the same. There are more older students this year. Is that it?
Oh my God, you’re not going to Monty Hall them!
The first assessment is done. To teach the students the blog software, the first assignment is a post (with image + live link) and a comment (with live link). In the posts, each student has to explain why they are not science majors and why they are doing this course.