July 14, 2019 Sunday
Bedtime Story
Biology Has Two Explanations
The blood vessels and their endothelium
that is common to all vertebrates would make for a great bedtime story just by
themselves.
Every biological entity of organisms carry
with them two explanations – one that is largely taught and known to many which
is the proximate explanation and the other that is always ignored and hence
remains elusive to most is the evolutionary explanation.
Both cardiovascular biologists and medical
cardiologists have a great understanding of cellular and molecular biology and
biochemistry to describe the anatomy, physiology and embryology/ontogeny of vascular
system of modern-day organisms.
Yet these very experts would find
themselves at sea when posed with the questions of “when and why” which are
essentially answered by evolutionary biologists.
Let me put some such questions for you so
that you at the very least get aware of them not only of their (questions)
existence but of the fact that now we have an undisputed consensus of a fairly decent
understanding of their answers.
When did the cardiovascular system evolve
in the first place?
Why or rather what was the need for such a
system to evolve in larger organisms that possessed vertebrae?
Why are certain blood circulatory systems
open when most that are found in organisms including the apes are closed one?
Why are certain cardiovascular systems lined
with endothelium whereas there are others that do not have a lining of this
type?
Mind you, this is one of those few systems of
organisms that leave no trace on the fossil records.
Generally speaking, except for this one
science of biology, no other science really has a compelling reason to seek out
its evolutionary questions.
Mathematics for one as we saw in some of
our bedtime stories has a rather short history that originated with the advent
of civilization some 12,000 years ago.
Nature may be mathematical but it needed
civilized human apes to fashion a science out of it.
Similar is the case with physics and chemistry
and their allied sciences which really do not have to seek out their evolutionary
answers.
If there is one science that stands out in
this respect besides biology that is impelled to ask the evolutionary questions
that is undeniably the cosmology – a specific branch of astronomy that contains
within it the seeds and kernels of mathematics, physics and chemistry.
It is the only other science that not only
competes with biology but transcends it supremely and vehemently in asking even
more fundamental evolutionary questions.
Simply compare the questions of
evolutionary biology (ours was limited to cardiovascular system but it suffices
to give the general idea) with those of cosmology (to list out a few) to agree
that cosmology beats biology hands down in this respect.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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