Throughout school and life itself, I would consider that my general knowledge has increased tremendously, and also, how much I think I know. My school, my classes, my clubs and my grades have all being indicators and motives for me to belief that I’m “smart”, which is in part true, but not entirely. You see, I have recently had the privilege of being part of the 2015 iGEM competition, which is organised by MIT and takes place once a year in Boston. It is a world wide synthetic biology competition that has the purpose of finding solutions to global issues by using synthetic biology as the solution. After watching incredible presentations of universities like Harvard, Oxford, MIT, Brown and others, it wouldn't be enough for me to say that I have learned a lot and that my entire sense of what I think I know about the world has changed. The best way that I could describe it, is through the words that a wise man once said: “I only know that I know nothing”- Socrates.
From projects that have engineered E.coli bacteria in order to cure cancer, to bioplastics that are sensitive to heat and humidity and fold in their presence in order to occupy less space in outer space explorations, all these projects take the world of biology, chemistry and physics to a level where there is no limit. The world is going to change, and it is going to change sooner than what we might think. There are so many things to explore, learn and discover that it begs the question: “Would it be possible to know everything there is to know”, “could there be a point so far into the future where one might have nothing else to discover?”. NO. I think that, although it’s the year 2015 and we have about 7 billion people, it will never be a concluding/ feasible goal. This is for two main reasons, the first is that time and the amount of knowledge we have right now is way too little in comparison to what the universe has to offer, as I clearly saw at iGEM. The second reason is that we would start to deal with much more ethical issues by which we might not all agree. In fact, there are already millions of people that are in disagreement with our projects in synthetic biology right now! People start to question things like: “Are they playing “god” by engineering living organisms?” “Is it morally correct to modify the human genome in order to prevent diseases?” I can’t give a direct answer because it’ll be biased, and I hope these thoughts don’t come from pure ignorance either. It is all very confusing, but there are two things that are clear to me. One, If the universe were a 10 story building library, we couldn't even fill the first shelf with books of what we know about it, and two, everybody is entitled to contributing to that library.
2 Comments
Valeria
10/4/2015 08:56:07 pm
Nico, your blog never let me off the hook. I love the questions that you ask yourself, and the courage you actually have to try and figure them out. It is indeed complicated, to think you know a topic/skill very well and then realize that you actually don't. However, its part of the learning cycle, because it is in the moment that you realize that you know nothing that you grow, and push your limits even further. Although your structure was well thought out, I saw a two powerful ideas: that there are no limits to human knowledge and the ethical issues of bioengineering. The second issue is a current debate of utmost important, and I would liked to have seen more reflection on that side, or maybe even not mention it at all, since that idea itself could be used to write another blog post.
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Bon
10/13/2015 05:12:48 pm
Nico, this post highlights your thirst for knowledge. You're right, learning can be a humbling experience because it helps us understand how much we still need to master.
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