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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LazarusLong42" data-source="post: 1395508" data-attributes="member: 9620">There's an argument that reductionist biology--which is what most molecular biologists practice--could never do something as simple as fixing a radio.  It goes a bit like this.How does a biologist determine how a radio works?  First, he gathers a group of ten thousand radios, places them in a pile on the backlot, and shoots a few dozen shotgun shells at them.  Then, he takes the ones that are not working, and determines why they don't work.This leads to an absurd situation in which one group of scientists might find a crucial part (CP1) that they say is required for the radio to function.  Soon after, another group sayd that CP1 is in fact not necessary, but CP2 (a second crucial part is.  THen a third gropu will note that there is a switch which, in one position, causes CP1 to be necessary, and in another position, causes CP2 to be necessary.  In other words, neither one is truly crucial, it depends on the switch.(The switch is the AM/FM switch; the two "crucial parts" are the interior connections to the AM and FM antennae, respectively.)This may or may not be what PsiSeveredHead was alluding to, of course, and I'm paraphrasing the original article.Chemical nomenclature is FUN!  Teaching it to students is even more fun.A mosquito cried out in vain:"A chemist has poisoned my brain!"The cause of his sorrowWas 2,2-dichloro-Diphenyltrichloroethane.--Eric/LL (BS Chemistry, MS Neuroscience, and still don't know a DAMN thing.)[Edit:  like the meter for a limerick....]</blockquote>

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