Introduction
THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE MODERN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
The disciplines and sub-disciplines, categories and sub-categories of the biological sciences have multiplied, burgeoned, taking the form of some great efflorescence of knowledge in the last two centuries (1800-2000). Philosopher and historian Alexandre Koyré coined the term scientific revolution in 1939 to describe the foundation of this modern efflorescence. The era associated primarily with the 16th and 17th (1500-1700) centuries laid the foundations for our modern science, this modern burgeoning. During those earlier centuries, those 200 years, new ideas and knowledge in: physics, astronomy, biology, medicine and chemistry--transformed medieval and ancient views of nature. According to most accounts, the scientific revolution began in Europe towards the end(1500-1600) of the Renaissance era(1300-1600) and continued through the late 18th century, the later period known as The Enlightenment(1650-1800). It was sparked by the publication in 1543 of two works by Nicolaus Copernicus that changed the course of science.
MY WRITING ON THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
The poetry and prose that I write involving the biological sciences relate to these burgeoning fields, this immense efflorescence of the biological sciences. I draw on these fields directly and indirectly, literally and metaphorically. Some readers may find the connections I draw in my writing to the biological sciences not that evident.
--------------------------------------------------------------
A * Aerobiology — the study of airborne organic particles * Agriculture — the study of producing crops from the land, with an emphasis on practical applications * Anatomy — the study of form and function, in plants, animals, and other organisms, or specifically in human
* Astrobiology- the study of evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe—also known as exobiology, exopaleontology, and bioastronomy
B * Biochemistry — the study of the chemical reactions required for life to exist and function, usually a focus on the cellular level * Bioengineering — the study of biology through the means of engineering with an emphasis on applied knowledge and especially related to biotechnology * Bioinformatics — the use of information technology for the study, collection, and storage of genomic and other biological data* *Biomathematics or Mathematical Biology — the quantitative or mathematical study of biological processes, with an emphasis on modeling * Biomechanics — often considered a branch of medicine, the study of the mechanics of living beings, with an emphasis on applied use through prosthetics or orthotics * Biomedical research — the study of the human body in health and disease * Biophysics — the study of biological processes through physics, by applying the theories and methods traditionally used in the physical sciences * Biotechnology — a new and sometimes controversial branch of biology that studies the manipulation of living matter, including genetic modification and synthetic biology * Building biology — the study of the indoor living environment * Botany — the study of plants
D * Developmental biology — the study of the processes through which an organism forms, from zygote to full structure
E * Ecology — the study of the interactions of living organisms with one another and with the non-living elements of their environment * Embryology — the study of the development of embryo (from fecundation to birth). See also topobiology. * Entomology — the study of insects * Environmental Biology — the study of the natural world, as a whole or in a particular area, especially as affected by human activity * Epidemiology — a major component of public health research, studying factors affecting the health of populations * Ethology — the study of animal behavior * Evolutionary Biology — the study of the origin and descent of species over time
G/H/I * Genetics — the study of genes and heredity * Herpetology — the study of reptiles and amphibians * Histology — the study of cells and tissues, a microscopic branch of anatomy * Ichthyology — the study of fish * Integrative biology — the study of whole organisms
L/M * Limnology — the study of inland waters * Mammalogy — the study of mammals * Marine Biology — the study of ocean ecosystems, plants, animals, and other living beings * Microbiology — the study of microscopic organisms (microorganisms) and their interactions with other living things * Molecular Biology — the study of biology and biological functions at the molecular level, some cross over with biochemistry * Mycology — the study of fungi
N * Neurobiology — the study of the nervous system, including anatomy, physiology and pathology
O * Oceanography — the study of the ocean, including ocean life, environment, geography, weather, and other aspects influencing the ocean
* Oncology — the study of cancer processes, including virus or mutation oncogenesis, angiogenesis and tissues remoldings * Ornithology — the study of birds
P * Population biology — the study of groups of conspecific organisms, including *Population ecology — the study of how population dynamics and extinction * Population genetics — the study of changes in gene frequencies in populations of organisms * Paleontology — the study of fossils and sometimes geographic evidence of prehistoric life * Pathobiology or pathology — the study of diseases, and the causes, processes, nature, and development of disease * Parasitology — the study of parasites and parasitism * Pharmacology — the study and practical application of preparation, use, and effects of drugs and synthetic medicines * Physiology — the study of the functioning of living organisms and the organs and parts of living organisms * Phytopathology — the study of plant diseases (also called Plant Pathology) * Psychobiology — the study of the biological bases of psychology
S * Sociobiology — the study of the biological bases of sociology * Structural biology — a branch of molecular biology, biochemistry, and biophysics concerned with the molecular structure of biological macromolecules
V * Virology — the study of viruses and some other virus-like agents
Z * Zoology — the study of animals, including classification, physiology, development, and behavior (See also Entomology, Ethology, Herpetology, Ichthyology, Mammalogy, and Ornithology)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
LIFE SCIENCES
The poetry and prose that I write involving the biological sciences also relates to the following life sciences, fields of science that involve the scientific study of living organisms: plants, animals, and human beings. However, the study of the behaviour of organisms, such as practised in ethology and psychology, is only included in-as-much as it involves a clearly biological aspect. While biology and medicine remain centerpieces of the life sciences, technological advances in molecular biology and biotechnology have led to a burgeoning of specializations and new, inevitably, interdisciplinary, fields. The following is an incomplete list of life-science fields, as well as topics of study in the life-sciences, in which several entries coincide with, are included in, or overlap with other entries:
* Cognitive neuroscience * Computational neuroscience * Developmental biology * Ecology* * Environmental science * Evolutionary biology * Evolutionary genetics * Food science * Genetics * Genomics * Health sciences * Immunogenetics * Immunology * Immunotherapy * Medical devices * Medical imaging * Medicine * Microbiology * Molecular biology * Nanotechnology * Neuroinformatics * Neuroscience * Oncology * Optometry * Personalized medicine * Pharmacogenomics * Pharmacology * Physiology * Plant sciences * Proteomics * Structural biology * Systems biology * Tissue engineering * Zoology * Agrotechnology * Bio-engineeringCell biology * Biomedical science * Biochemistry * Biocomputing * Biocontrol * Biodynamics * Bioinformatics * Biology * Biomaterials * Biomechanics * Biomedical sciences * Biomolecular engineering * Biomonitoring * Biophysics * Biopolymers * Biotechnology * Botany
--------------------------------------------------
HOW I COME NOW TO WRITE: A POEM OR WHATEVER
I remember the then unofficial poet laureate of the Baha'i community back in the 1980s, Roger White(1919-1993), saying that the origins of a poem were often like poor connections you often get on a telephone line. For me it is a little like that. Writing begins in a feeling or a thought or both. The thought will often be in a book, on the internet, in one of the multitude of mediums in the print and electronic media, sometimes in a quotation from the thousands I have collected in the last thirty years, sometimes an experience or a memory. This thought will be enough to move my emotions. I need to feel moved, provoked, stirred and then it is usually a simple flowing of ideas, words as experiences. Sometimes it takes two or three hours before a poem is completed. But usually the poem is finished in an hour: a little less or a little more.
I’m not sure why I write. Perhaps it is that I don’t like doing many other things like: gardening and shopping, household and domestic duties, going out socially and watching many hours of TV, sport and vigorous exercise, inter alia. We all have to fill in our time somehow. This is the one way I have of filling in my time in the evening of my life that gives me the most pleasure and meaning. As much as two hours in the morning, three or four in the afternoon and two to four in the evening: six to ten hours in total with an average of eight a day. Until I retired from FT and PT work in the years 1999 to 2003 this way of spending of my time did not exist. I worked 60+ hours a week, attended a multitude of meetings, and had what might be called a high social profile. The responsibilities that made up my life as: a father, husband, teacher, secretary of a Baha'i community, man, and human being in the late twentieth century prevented me from ever really getting my life oriented around writing.
THE HUMAN GENOME AND THE ARC PROJECTS
The completion of the Human Genome Project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Genome_Project coincided with the completion of the Arc Project by the international Baha'i community at the Baha'i World Centre in Haifa Israel. A working draft of the genome was announced in 2000 and a complete one in 2003, with further, more detailed analysis still being published. The Arc Project is, like the Human Genome Project, an ongoing task: http://bahai-library.com/poetry_arc_project_history The Arc Project has certainly changed the way the world now sees the Baha'i Faith, at least a segment of the world. The Human Genome Project, the mapping of human genes, is an important step in the development of medicines and other aspects of health care. While the objective of the Human Genome Project is to understand the genetic makeup of the human species, the project has also focused on several other nonhuman organisms such as E. coli, the fruit fly, and the laboratory mouse. It remains one of the largest single investigative projects in modern science.
Just as small differences between our genome and those of other animals and plants reveal what make us uniquely human and profoundly different from animals and plants, so do small differences between the Baha'i Faith and other Faiths make this new world religion which grew out of Persian soil in the 19th century, the unique and profoundly different phenomenon that it is. Both Projects have resulted in great gifts, powerful tools, for humanity's use. Both Projects will help human beings find their place in the complex systems that make up the great adventure of life in this universe. Both Projects were launched by inspired visions, visions that were based on the pursuit of large-scale fundamental problems in the life-sciences or in the human and social sciences, of which religion is but one of their many related sub-disciplines. Both Projects were and are in the interest of humanity whether any specific individual takes an interest in these Projects or not. Those portions of humanity who take an interest in these Projects can see some fascinating co-relations, synchronicities.
Both Projects are not endings but beginnings. They are the beginnings of a new approach to biology on the one hand and global cooperation, peace and a new future on the other. Both Projects are identified with extraordinary new power and with the treatment of disease, one physical disease and the other spiritual. Both are associated with a true internationalism which has developed significantly during my lifetime: 1944 to the present. For a timeline on this internationalism, this globalization, go to:http://www.org/Globalization-Timeline.pdf -Ron Price with thanks to Barbara R. Jasny and Donald Kennedy, "The Human Genome," Science, Vol. 291, No. 5507, 16 February 2001, p.1153.
We get another perspective
on all the life on earth & on
this small-still--insignificant
religion in which we played
a part over all these years.
from 1965 to....whenever...
Small differences can make
all the difference...a written
Revelation, clear statement
of succession.......My God,
these two factors alone can
make for a unique and pure
beginning & the unity of life,
of religion...it is so obvious,
so clear, & so true.....I see it
on that Hill of God....still the
cynosure of such a very few.
Ron Price
24 February 2001 to 29 August 2011
A NEW POETIC INFLUENCE
The Japanese philosophy of Wabi Sabi, which the West comes closest to in the writings of Henry David Thoreau(1817-1862), places the accent on artistic expression. In its aesthetic philosophy the accent is on the rustic, the raw, the rough, on the imperfect, the impermanent, the incomplete, on nothingness, emptiness, detachment. Since much of my poetry contains accents similar to the tone and texture, meaning and feeling, conveyed by these words; since I have long felt a certain identity with the writings of Henry David Thoreau--that pioneer of yesteryear who also wrote extensively about his everyday experience in the bush, in the rustic places where he lived by himself; and since the Writings of the Baha'i Faith, and of Baha'u'llah in particular, also dwell on that same mystical quality of nothingness and emptiness, of detachment and the wilderness of remoteness: this particular Japanese philosophy of Wabi Sabi has a peculiar relevance to my own writings. -Ron Price with thanks to "The Comfort Zone," ABC Radio National, 3 March 2001, 9:00-10:00 am. For an overview of Wabi-Sabi go to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi
Only recently has it been confirmed
that this galaxy has a billion planets,(1)
only just the other day while the Arc
Project was being completed, filling
my world with a white marble light,
with fragrances of mercy wafted as
they are over all created things, and
over those many myriads of planets.
And here, in these words, I shed
a unique light on the lives of men
and women over the four epochs,
these protean beings who strike a
100 thousand postures in their lives
and change their spots swifter than
the twinkling of an eye or even the
singleness of a breath or heartbeat.(2)
(1) Interview with an astronomer at the American Association for the Advancement of Science(AAAS) on "The Science Show," ABC Radio National, 12:10-1:00 pm, 3 March 2001. The real number of planets is astronomically huge. There are about 400 billion stars in our galaxy. If each of them have the same number of planets on average as our own sun, then that's about 4 trillion planets in our own galaxy. Multiply that by an estimated 125 billion galaxies in the universe ... that's a lot of planets. For more details go to:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet.
(2) Robert Louis Stevenson(1850-1894), the Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer, wrote the "Modern History Sourcebook: Samuel Pepys," 1886. In this book Stevenson discusses the chameleon nature of human beings drawing on the great diarist Samuel Pepys(1633-1703).
--------------------------------------------------------
YOU MUST COME CLOSE
The poem below was the last one I wrote in the few days I was in England before going on my pilgrimage to Haifa. I wrote it while sitting in Hyde Park on an overcast afternoon in early June at the beginning of summer. A certain and undefinable poetic mood settled as a result of my thinking about my maternal grandfather who would possibly have passed though this park a century before in 1900 before going to Canada, coincidentally, exactly 100 years before. A century later, in these several days in London in which I did visit one of the places of spiritual pilgrimage if not my biological roots, I got as close as I probably ever would in my life to some of the places of my origins on my maternal grandfather’s side and his earliest days in Chatham, Croydon and London back in the 1870s. My poetic mood concluded, finished its enveloping function, as a result of my contemplating another park, another garden, in Haifa. -Ron Price, Pioneering Over Three Epochs, 3 June 2000.
This great green garden,
in the midst of an ocean
of concrete, bitumen, brick,
glass, plastic and aluminium:
creations of this burgeoning
century--fill all of my senses
as I sit in this historic park.
And these Hanging Gardens,(1)
chambers for a process, another
creation, mass conversion, major
creation of this new century on...
the horizon, cannot be envisaged
as I sit in this famous place where
the world gathers for its leisure &
where ducks and pigeons gather
for theirs—decade after decade.
Our world will be transformed in
the next hundred years......Even
these new Hanging Gardens, like
this park, will wear a new garment
when this new century is rolled up.
In the meantime, thank you for your
space in this hectic city of such very
narrow streets, endless cars & buses.
The small rose garden here with subtle
fragrance, its rich beauty & sweetness
can be felt...but you must come close.....
in this great green garden: yes you must
come close, or you won’t even see it......
Like so many things in life, you must.....
come as close as you possible can, right
into it....if you possibly can, yessireebob!
Reminds me, reminds me, of that Hanging
Garden with its grace that is so contained
as to pose no threat, no threat at all.....(2)
(1) where I will be in a few days and which I have been contemplating with some seriousness for several years.
(2) Roger White, “The Artefact”, The Witness of Pebbles, 1981, p.97.
Ron Price
3 June 2000 to 29 August 2011.
-----------------------------------------
VISION CREATES REALITY
A week before my kindergarten class broke for its Christmas holiday in Burlington Ontario in 1948, T.S. Eliot gave a banquet speech. Of course I had no idea as I got ready to make snow forts, to roll-up snow balls and to play my little red harp more than usual. Eliot’s banquet speech was given for the Nobel Prize he received that year in literature. “Poetry is usually considered the most local of all the arts,” he opened his speech. “Painting, sculpture, architecture, music, can be enjoyed by all who see or hear. But language, especially the language of poetry, is a different matter. Poetry, it might seem, separates peoples instead of uniting them.”
“But on the other hand,” he went on, “we must remember, that while language constitutes a barrier, poetry itself gives us a reason for trying to overcome the barrier…..In the work of every poet there will certainly be much that can only appeal to those who inhabit the same region, or speak the same language, as the poet. But nevertheless there is a meaning to the phrase ‘the poetry of Europe’ and even to the word ‘poetry’ the world over. I think that in the world of poetry people of different countries and different languages, though it be apparent only to a small minority in any one country, acquire an understanding of each other which, however partial, is still essential. And I take the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature, when it is given to a poet, to be primarily an assertion of the supra-national value of poetry. To make that affirmation, it is necessary from time to time to designate a poet: and I stand before you, not on my own merits, but as a symbol, for a time, of the significance of poetry.” -Ron Price with thanks to T.S. Eliot, “Banquet Speech,” Nobel Prize for Literature, 1948.
There is something local here
in these words that I pour upon
the page and something global,
something of thoughts which I
have been associated with, on
the edge of, since 1953. There's
something familial, ideological,
national, sociological, historical,
psychological, poetic, as well as
anthropological, literary, personal,
autobiographical, biological, and
biographical, some voice that has
haunted me and with which words
must be harmonised, some mirror
of the future’s gigantic shadows
cast upon the present, some mirror
of the only true law, the law of what
is to be: for I must emphasize here (1)
that vision creates our true reality.....
(1) Frederick Nietzsche in Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry, Oxford UP, 1973, p.55.
Ron Price
February 11th 2007
The Story Of Science: What Is The Secret Of Life
In a television doco Michael Mosley(1978-) embarked on an informative and ambitious journey exploring how the evolution of scientific understanding was and is intimately interwoven with society's historical path. The Story Of Science: power, proof and passion tells the story of the forces that came together to create scientific knowledge, the practical business of making instruments and machines, and the great forces of history. Mosley weaves in the revolutions, the voyages of discovery and the artistic movements showing along the way the dogged determination of scientists and experimenters.(1) It was an immense pleasure to watch this programme, although I must confess to falling asleep by the end due to my medications and many hours during the day of writing, editing and attending to my domestic and social responsibilities.-Ron Price with thanks to ABC1 8:30-9:30 p.m. 10 May 2011(BBC 2010).
Michael Moseley tells the story
of how the secret of life has been
unravelled through the prism of
that most complex organism known:
the human body. The story begins...
with attempts to save the lives of the
gladiators in Rome, unfolds with the
macabre work and those near-perfect
drawings of Leonardo da Vinci during
the Renaissance, continues through
the idea of the 'life force' of electricity,
and on to microscopic worlds of cells.
It reveals how a moral crisis unleashed
by work on nuclear bombs helped to...
trigger that great breakthrough in biology:
the understanding of the structure and the
workings of life's master molecule: DNA—
it was a most incredible journey Michael
for which I thank your journalist, producer
and presenter skills and your knowledge of:
philosophy, politics, economics, psychiatry.
11 May 2011
------------------------------------
SOME BIRD FLYING HOME
Philosopher and writer J.J. Rousseau(1712-1778) wrote that "Our errors in judgements produce the ardour of all our desires."(Emile, Chapter IV). The correctness of our judgements produce the ardour of some of our desires.(Ron Price, Pioneering Over Four Epochs)
Poets like Roger White(1919-1993) were exploring unusual and interesting ways in which a poem could say things in the half century from the 1940s to the 1990s. They wanted to delight and surprise their readers. Most poets still wrote traditionally; most did not surprise or delight, although obviously that was not true of all poets. People were getting surprised and delighted through so many other forms of the print and electronic media in those decades. A great deal of obscurity still prevailed and still prevails in poetry. -Ron Price, Pioneering Over Five Epochs, 25 May 2011.
I reached a centre long ago,
one that will forever remain
mysterious, revered, profound
and alteratively close and distant.
This has not prevented carnal
dreams, nor obsessive questions,
nor the divisive pull of nature.
But, now, this centre is being
embellished far beyond my dreams,
a contemporaneity of sweet beauty,
whiteness, concrete, marble, human,
a great wheel of words: blood-red,
green and gold: His colours, where
my outer and inner landscapes meet,
my continent, my endless geography
where I have discovered, found, lost,
despaired and where I now find a unity
of my fractured, exiled self, like some
bird flying home, even if its wings are
torn, tattered, tired-worn, a celestial
bikey, come off too many times, given
it away. Don’t go near Niagara any more,
or the Rockies: pioneered overseas and
that has been enough for me epochally.
I kiss you on the cheek, caress you more
than I have ever done, but it is the kiss of
a generation that said “no”, and was such
a meagre inspiration, that wore me thinner
and thinner with my paper-thin biology and
sent me right round the world to burnout at
both ends where beasts raised their claws to
my throat, danced charms and gave me slow
images of pleasure, carving meaning.......also
devouring unity, dissolving life itself leaving a
drained field, a chiaroscuro of images for the
eye to play with in mediums of messages until
the darkness of midnight took all colour & all
shades away. After all this: serenity & stability
grew over me like moss. I remain indecipherable,
unique, obscure with my freedom structured in this
Order, an Order for this Age...and happiness above
and beyond the glitter-and-tinsel, so enigmatic, and
wrapped up in this writing, in what is left of this long
wandering self from one end of the earth to the other.
6 April 1996 to 28 August 2011
---------------------------------------------------
Some of my interent posts below in relation to the biological sciences:
http://www.thescienceforum.com/search
(in the 'username' box type RonPrice to read my posts)
http://www.thescienceforum.com/viewtopic
(this is a long and extensive discussion on the topic of predictability in biology
