Last week I attended a lecture given by the development biologist Professor Lewis Wolpert who was visiting the Karolinska. I wasn’t familiar with Wolpert previous to this but was fascinated by his talk, and after some check-up reading I realized that he is very well-known.
Professor Wolpert discussed the truly amazing fact that one cell – the ferilized egg – will develop into a complete organism where all the organs will form in the right places, all body parts will be put together in the right order and size. "I hope that every night before you go to bed, you take a deep breath and think – ’Isn’t it amazing that I came from one single cell!’ ", as Wolpert put it.
And how does it happen? Many details remain to be elucidated, but it’s all because of gradients of signaling molecules – gradients that can exist already at the level of a single cell and will then guide all development and tell cells what to do and when to do it. These signaling molecules are a relatively simple and extremely well conserved set, such as the hox genes – Wolpert states “Cell behavior arises not from complexity of signals but in complexity in the response to signals”.
But Wolpert’s talk didn’t only get me thinking about gradients and development. Apart from being a scientist Wolpert is also, among other things, a vice-President of the British Humanist Association. You could tell – from quotes like “I’d like to be a creationist so I wouldn’t have to struggle with these difficult evoultionary problems”. If I hadn’t already been sitting to attention, this line would have woken me up. It’s very rare that anyone approaches the evolution vs intelligent design area in Sweden. I can’t understand why, since this topic seems to popular in most other places. I would like to believe that it’s because we are so rational that we have all understood and accepted the evidence for evolution and are keeping any potential religion on the side. Unfortunately, form the few allusions to this area that do pop up, I doubt that is the case. We might do good to discuss it a bit more – although then we are back to the problem of how to explain science .
Yeah, I’m an admirer. When I graduated from Leicester in ’96, he was receiving an honorary something, and made a very nice speech. Worth checking out his popular science writing. I like his line: “You may not like it, but that’s the way it is.”
I love that sense of enthusiasm! I was lucky enough to have a fantastic biology teacher who would, for example, teach us about the chemical reactions involved in photosynthesis, and then grab a plant from the windowsill and wave it in the air, proclaiming “this is happening in this plant RIGHT NOW! Isn’t that just SO COOL??!!”.
I remember learning about gradients and cell polarity a few years later, during my undergrad degree. This is why I love biology – you learn something like that and it just suddenly makes so much sense. “Aha! That’s how that happens!”
I may be a wee bit delirious on my flu meds ;)
This is a nice sensation Anna. This sensation of learning in my undergrad degree in Biology, in particularly in a great course very nice Zoology of Vertebrates
I saw his recent book reviewed recently: How We Live and Why We Die: The Secret Lives of Cells. Unfortunately I can’t remember where, but it was quite positive about it.
“The Secret Lives of Cells” – wonderful title! I want to read that right away (and don’t even like cell biology that much ^^)
Anna> do you think it may be because we Swedes have been sort of relaxed (private) in general when it comes to religion and expression of personal beliefs in the work place?! A bit like the love of Nature that is really quite strong and sort of take precedence over talk about God and ID but rather focused on the “look at nature’s wonders” and then we just bask in the beauty and think that it truely is wonderful?
Then again, I am quite sure that there are discussions about ID and Darwin in some of the "friskolor’ (none county schools).
(and I can’t even blame flu meds like Cath. I’m just home sick for Swedes at the moment :) )
I hope that heal soon,Åsa.
I am another admirer of Professor Wolpert – as Lee said, his popular science writing is good. I took a course on Developmental Biology at Undergrad and his text book was the standard text, however I read an older popular science book on the same topic by him – the enthusiasm certainly came across in that.
I have been meaning to have a look at his most recent book, as Frank said it has positive reviews.
@ Lee, Cath, and Alejandro – Yes, that was exactly it, the enthusiasm! It makes a huge difference listening to someone who clearly find what they are doing genuinely fascinating. With a lecturer like that, I kind of relax a bit – it’s the sensation that this person will make listening easy, s/he will carry me through the talk, and I don’t have to fight to keep my attention in place. Just sit back and enjoy :)
@Frank and Erika – good to know, I was thinking of reading some of his popular science books. Maybe I’ll start with that one – I agree with Åsa that the title itself makes you want to read it just for that.
@Åsa – Yes, I think you are right – religion is definitely an out of limit topic, and then if it is ever brought up we are all so much struggling to be politically correct that we sometimes confuse respecting peoples believes with not being able to have an opinion at all. I never thought that it had to do with talking about the nature instead, but maybe you are right – Swedes are very attached to nature.
Talking about nature – if you had had to face the pre-dawn colder-than-ice sleet hitting you in the face coming in horizontally under any umbrella during your morning walk to the bus stop (forget walking to work, in this weather – never!) you would be instantly cured from any home sickness. It’s November, and it’s only just begun. Stay well away.
Anna> thanks for the image. I now remember the icy sleet in my face those cold, dark mornings when I rode my bike to the Department. Lots of mornings, lots of sleet, lots of November ;) ok, it might be nice over here in the 17C sunny weather …..
In reagrds to the nature, I think it is hard to appriciate exactly how attached we Swedes (and Norweigans) are to the nature thing until you live somewhere where people aren’t as much as a collective. I mean, “sommarstuga” and “going to torpet for the weekend”? Maybe it is a sort of “back in the time when I was young concept” but I do think there is something to that natural romanticism and fascination with trees/sea/islands/silence/mountains that many of us have.
It might be nice over here in the 17C sunny weather
Er..yes, it might :)
And I’m sure you are right about the nature thing. Being in the middle of it you just don’t notice it…