Science: miracles and mysteries
SCIENTISTS keep pulling the rug out from under their own feet. They acquire new knowledge that makes the old, suddenly upended ideas seem quaintly uninformed.
After discoveries are made, there are surprised choruses of apparently we were wrong. One can only say apparently, because the whole point of science is that there's always more to learn.
Last week two discoveries ushered in new insights. There's the news that in China, scientists had found the fossil remains of Gigantoraptor erlianensis, a 3,100-pound, roughly 26-foot-long birdlike dinosaur that may have had feathers. The fossil was found in 2005, but scientists spent two years studying it before announcing its importance. The upset for science: Theories held that the more birdlike dinosaurs became, the smaller they got. That's not so in this case. Large as he was, this dinosaur didn't live long enough to reach its full size.
Then there's the news that researchers have made a huge leap in understanding the human genome. The old thinking was that genes, which are made of DNA, determine how a living body is cobbled together. The new thinking is that genes work with other kinds of DNA, so-called junk DNA, that had been seen as less important. Now scientists say junk DNA also plays an important role in regulating cells.
The finding is the result of a four-year, $42 million international effort that involved 80 institutions and looked at just 1 percent of the entire human genome, some 30 million units of DNA. What exactly does junk DNA do, and how does it function? These questions have yet to be answered. The goal is to create an encyclopedia of the various DNA elements of the human genome, a kind of instruction manual on how DNA works.
Such findings are an implicit invitation to children to become scientists and continue the work of their academic ancestors. But to take their rightful place in the world's laboratories, children need to be in schools with teachers who can engage them in the sciences, immersing them in current thought and enticing them to pursue what's not known. Children need a clear sense of the scientific mission and enough moxie to keep challenging conventional wisdom.
Scientific progress is also an implicit appeal to government to keep research funding flowing -- both to solve known problems such as chronic diseases, and to gather knowledge for knowledge's sake. Last week, the American Association for the Advancement of Science highlighted efforts in the US House to spend $21 billion more on federal research funding than President Bush has proposed.
It would be money well spent: on science and on the profound endeavor of pursuing the unknown. 