PocketMatrix

Biology is not silly at all. That's a stupid statement. I did, however, agree with most of the rest of your post.

It is extremely important to know how we work, and how things interact in an environment. This helps us make efforts to conserve our environment, which is extremely important. You can't help something that you can't understand (what do you think medicine and psychology are?). Biology is just as important (and quite often related to those). Just look at all the interesting things that spring from an advanced knowledge of biology, all the interesting research. We can extend our life almost indefinately just by somehow introducing Telomerase (an enzyme that reproduces moot genetic information on the end of Chromosones used for protection). Just one enzyme in our cells can increase our life-span by like 20 years. If we figure out how to disrupt the action of Telomerase in cancer cells, it's a cure for (fatal) cancer. I'm speaking theoretically here, but what if?

And let's not ignore the current and past research stemming from biology that make my life and yours much more pleasant. Biology is extremely important and extremely relevant. Even if you don't care about Mendelian genetics, the other stuff is so useful.

Ya, sure, it is all very useful. But it's just not for me. I don't want to be a biomolecular scientists or a botanist or any of that. And I suppose it isn't Biology that's silly, it's the class I'm taking, that's all.

I'm in a better mood, my parents just came up to Lakeland to eat dinner with me and give me some presents for my birthday even though I told them I didn't want anything. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I don't like opening presents. I guess it's because I'm stoic poetically or shizoid psychologically. But anyway, they brought some cool stuff. Khaki pants that I needed (including those MobileDocker pants for my PocketPC and cellphone), a Good Luck Bamboo plant, a book on the game "Go", LotR Special Edition, Spiderman, some nice shirts... that's about it.

But ya, biology is not for me.

As I hit the reply key I realized that this link is quite old and so is likely no longer followed by the original posters. I did have a couple of thoughts though which I'll chance might (OK, probaby not!) be of interest to the occasional individual who happens this way.

I decided to go through medschool a couple of years after graduating with a degree in music. I'll admit that there were some sections of biology that were quite dull and seemingly quite irrelevant. But, if you'll excuse the cliche, there's something to be said about knowledge for knowledge's sake.

It's entirely reasonable for a person to have no burning desire for a deeper understanding of phloem movement needed to provide nutrients to vegetative matter... yet at the same time, I think that the more we learn about life and its workings (much like studying history) regardless of our personal take on its immediate relevance, the more it prepares us to develop our own opinions and philosophies on why we are here and what we want to do with our lives. I guess that's just a (excessively ) wordy way of saying that there's something really special about being educated on a wide range of topics.

There are no easy answers of course, but I think, the more aware one is of the varied nature of biology, philosophy and (my own bias), art, the more we are equipped to understand what has cme before us and maybe help prepare us for responding appropriately to everything around us.

</soapbox>

... oh well, I imagine this post will never be read--which is probably a good thing. Too many thoughts are simply rattling around in there and I really need to get back to studying..... g'night all....

...except that when you reply to a post it's moved to the front of the forum.

Good insight, though... to each his own, I say. Some people thrive on science, some can't stand it. Some are naturally fantastic writers, some poepl cnt spel 4 beenz. We don't ALL have to like biology, but it's far from a problem if you do.