See You Next Week

Two exams this week. Translation: No posting. Go read something interesting. Read actual news. CNN, or something. As long as they're done talking about Anna Nicole.

Actually, before I go into radio (internet?) silence, I wanted to share a thought. I'm used to a lot of bickering over evolution. It just seems like the people who actually understand the inner workings are a rare specimen.

What I mean is, I'm pretty close to having a MS, with 90% of the classes leading to that being biology courses. The degree is in biochem/biotech, but that's not really important. In all of my biochem/molecular bio courses, we've mentioned evolution only in passing. This strikes me as so bizarre. I'm going to have a master's degree in a biological science and I won't have formally learned anything about a subject that is considered the paradigm for understanding all biological sciences.

Not that that's hampering me (that I can tell). Do you have to be a biology undergrad to get courses in this? At my undergrad school, evolution was largely a freshman level course, which most likely means it wasn't exactly scientifically rigorous. Do you have to get a PhD in biological evolution before you get courses where this is addressed specifically?

I find it odd that it's been mentioned so little in any of the courses I've had, and I'm left with a lot of curiosity. I'd be interested to know what the theory looks like on the development of the first nucleic/amino acids and their associated structures. I've heard rumors of an all RNA world before life really took off . . . what is the theory on how things worked there?

That's it. Go read something good.