As life forms, viruses are just inherently interesting. It's the microworld - this universe of life too small for us to see - but it's profoundly complicated, and immensely powerful. Ebola is like a beautiful and frightening predator. There is a wonder in the operations of nature that can't be denied, even when we're the losers.
Interpretation
The complexity of viruses reveals the wonders and challenges of nature that are often beyond our perception.
This quote by Richard Preston reflects on the fascinating and complex nature of viruses, highlighting their dual role as both beautiful entities and dangerous predators. It emphasizes the intricate balance of life in the microworld, where even the tiniest organisms can have a profound impact on our lives, eliciting both wonder and fear in humanity as we grapple with their potential consequences.
In practice
A scientist discussing the significance of viruses in a public health seminar.
Scientific facts are often described in textbooks as if they just sort of exist, like nickels someone picked up on the street. But science at the cutting edge, conducted by sharp minds probing deep into nature, is not about self-evident facts. It is about mystery and not knowing. It is about taking huge risks.
I think the really cool and compelling thing about math and physics is that it opens up entry to all these hypotheticals - or at least, it gives you the language to talk about them. But at the same time, if a scenario is completely disconnected from reality, it's not all that interesting.
We can't any longer have the conventional understanding of genetics which everybody peddles because it is increasingly obvious that epigenetics - actually things which influence the genome's function - are much more important than we realised.
The emotional brain responds to an event more quickly than the thinking brain.
Politicians, real-estate agents, used-car salesmen, and advertising copy-writers are expected to stretch facts in self-serving directions, but scientists who falsify their results are regarded by their peers as committing an inexcusable crime. Yet the sad fact is that the history of science swarms with cases of outright fakery and instances of scientists who unconsciously distorted their work by seeing it through lenses of passionately held beliefs.
Well, biology today as I see it has an amiable look - quite different from the 19th-century view that the whole arrangement of nature is hostile, 'red in tooth and claw.' That came about because people misread Darwin's 'survival of the fittest.'
As history proves abundantly, mathematical achievement, whatever its intrinsic worth, is the most enduring of all.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.