Sandwalk: Biochemistry's 100th Birthday: Day 2

Friday, May 30, 2008

Biochemistry's 100th Birthday: Day 2

Day 2 of the Department of Biochemistry 100th Anniversary Symposium began with a series of lectures by former graduates of the department; Shelagh Ferguson-Miller (Michigan State University), Natalie Goto (University of Ottawa), and Mark Glover (University of Alberta).

This was followed by a talk on the early history of the department by Professor Marian Packham. Marian was a student in the department from 1946-1949 and then she did her Ph.D. in the department. After a postdoc and a few years working for the government and the Red Cross, she joined the department as a faculty member in 1966 and rose to become a University Professor in 1989 (our highest title). Professor Packham gave an entertaining summary of the early years complete with humorous anecdotes that I won't repeat here.

Following Marian's talk we heard from two current members of the department: Lewis Kay and Lynn Howell.

The early afternoon was devoted to the poster session, featuring posters from students and postdocs. More than half the graduate students presented posters. One of my colleagues suggested that the high participation rate was due to the prize money being given out. Students have a 12.5% chance of winning at least $250. I'd like to think that they were motivated by a desire to communicate good science and just as many would have turned out if the prizes were just a handshake from our Chair.

I took a picture of Professor Packham at the poster session.

The speaker in the afternoon session (Theo Hoffman Lecture) was Greg Petsko from Brandies University in Boston (USA). Petsko is one of the gurus of structural biology. He has many connections to our department through his former students, postdocs and colleagues. He spoke on the structure of enzymes involved in Parkinson's disease.

Greg Petsko is as proud of his teaching as he is of his research accomplishments—and that's saying a lot. He is a very entertaining speaker. At the end of his talk everyone wanted to rush back to the lab to solve neurodegenerative diseases since many of us are going to get them. That was the main point.

The day ended with a gala banquet at Hart House that lasted until midnight. A very, very good time was had by all. There was plenty of opportunity to experience the products of anaerobic metabolism in yeast.

The person in the photo is John Challice, a former graduate student in our department and currently Vice President and Publisher Higher Education for the U.S. division of Oxford University Press.

2 comments :

Mike said...: Sounds like an interesting session.

Just one small point, Larry. It's 'University of Ottawa', not 'Ottawa University'. 'Ottawa University' is, of course, an unrelated institution in Kansas.

I feel I should, at the very least, stand up for the institution that saw fit to give me, of all people, a Ph.D.; Friday, May 30, 2008 8:12:00 AM
Larry Moran said...: Slaps head!

Of course it's University of Ottawa. I grew up in Ottawa and I know the correct name of the second best university in that city.

Dumb Larry. My only excuse is that I'm getting old and this may be the first signs of senility.; Friday, May 30, 2008 9:46:00 AM

Quotations

The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.Charles Darwin (c1880)

Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as "plan of creation," "unity of design," etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory.

Charles Darwin (1859)

Science reveals where religion conceals. Where religion purports to explain, it actually resorts to tautology. To assert that "God did it" is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation...

Peter Atkins

Quotations

The world is not inhabited exclusively by fools, and when a subject arouses intense interest, as this one has, something other than semantics is usually at stake. Stephen Jay Gould (1982)
I have championed contingency, and will continue to do so, because its large realm and legitimate claims have been so poorly attended by evolutionary scientists who cannot discern the beat of this different drummer while their brains and ears remain tuned to only the sounds of general theory. Stephen Jay Gould (2002) p.1339
The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies raw material only. Natural selection directs the course of evolutionary change. Stephen Jay Gould (1977)
Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers "just-so stories." When evolutionists try to explain form and behavior, they also tell just-so stories—and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance. Stephen Jay Gould (1980)
Since 'change of gene frequencies in populations' is the 'official' definition of evolution, randomness has transgressed Darwin's border and asserted itself as an agent of evolutionary change. Stephen Jay Gould (1983) p.335
The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: "Thou shalt not mix the magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science." In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as "miracle"—operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat. Stephen Jay Gould (1999) p.84

Quotations

My own view is that conclusions about the evolution of human behavior should be based on research at least as rigorous as that used in studying nonhuman animals. And if you read the animal behavior journals, you'll see that this requirement sets the bar pretty high, so that many assertions about evolutionary psychology sink without a trace.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution Is True

I once made the remark that two things disappeared in 1990: one was communism, the other was biochemistry and that only one of them should be allowed to come back.

Sydney Brenner
TIBS Dec. 2000

It is naïve to think that if a species' environment changes the species must adapt or else become extinct.... Just as a changed environment need not set in motion selection for new adaptations, new adaptations may evolve in an unchanging environment if new mutations arise that are superior to any pre-existing variations

Douglas Futuyma

One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.

Francis Crick

There will be no difficulty in computers being adapted to biology. There will be luddites. But they will be buried.

Sydney Brenner

An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: 'I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.' I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist

Richard Dawkins

Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understand it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even less as we now may be able to understand it in biology.

Jacques Monod

The false view of evolution as a process of global optimizing has been applied literally by engineers who, taken in by a mistaken metaphor, have attempted to find globally optimal solutions to design problems by writing programs that model evolution by natural selection.

Richard Lewontin

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Friday, May 30, 2008

Biochemistry's 100th Birthday: Day 2

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