What Happened to Science?

[HitRed]

Hmmm

[jusplay4fun]

I think I posted here about this effect in Chemistry. For last 20 years or so, Nobel prizes in Chemistry have been given out for more and more obscure bits of trivia, more chemical engineering than pure science, plus a few bits of biochem snuck into Chemistry when they really should have been Medicine. Chemistry is an example of a mature science where we already know almost everything and the things left to learn are incredibly

Next time I use a Lithium-Ion battery, or GFP, or cell membrane channels, or a molecular machine, I'll remember that it is either incredibly trivial or not real Chemistry.

Certainly the AI that can correctly predict protein shape was a major breakthrough this year. It was a breakthrough, but not really disruptive. Unless it was disruptive in the sense that crystallography which could take years is now almost an irrelevant practice for protein. That's neither trivial nor medicine and will get a Nobel prize one day.

If we know so much about chemistry, how come every textbook on Chemistry still includes Bohr diagrams?

It seems that you forgot your point in the OP, DY.

What is significant about the Bohr diagram?

And the improvements to and development of lithium ion battery did win a Nobel Prize in 2020 or so. BUT DISRUPTIVE? Hardly. That was an improvement of the Lithium battery and Ni-Cads and Fuel Cells. It was a matter NOT of improved batteries, but which one works the best. I have taught a WHOLE Lesson on ElectroChemistry. What was my Focus? The Lithium ion battery, OF COURSE. Why? It is the one we ALL are most familiar with and most useful NOW. BUT NOT DISRUPTIVE. The trajectory was to improve the portable and rechargeable battery.

And GFP? sounds like BioChem to me, that I already state. and the same for cell membrane channels. You try to argue against my point(s), but instead you merely validate my point(s).

The very aptly named green fluorescent protein — or GFP as it is almost universally known — is a barrel-shaped protein made up of 238 amino acids.Oct 8, 2008

The 2008 Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien for the discovery and development of the so-called green fluorescent protein

Green fluorescent protein | Nature Chemistry
The very aptly named green fluorescent protein — or GFP as it is almost universally known — is a barrel-shaped protein made up of 238 amino acids. Oct 8, 2008

And that is your only response to me? I made several points; 11 in my initial post in this thread. And a lengthy reply, later.

[ConfederateSS]

-------------- The true response is science sucks....I left out, Thermal nuclear war...A way to destroy everything in an instant...Take an oil spill , at least you can clean it up, like the ExxonMobil Valdez...Few miles of coast, cleaned up, you could, pick up a bird and clean it off...
-------------- A nuclear spill, disaster...You can't go near or touch anything for 100s of miles, or you will be contaminated... Radioactive waste...
-------------- To make money, back to modern greedy Doctors and Big Pharma.... Exploiting children...They make money telling kids, they are girls,no boys.... Preform sex changes on minors... Without parents permission...
-------------- Now they have begun to exploit obesity in kids.... Counseling, medicine,pills,...telling them they need surgery,for weight reduction....Instead of eating healthy and exercise...Yeah... science greedy scum... Harming children.... Remember when society, protected children.....The triumph of Science ....
--------- Yes ,what happened to science, it is greedy , pulling Mankind down...Has always been a tool of the Lord of Darkness...... ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)...

[mookiemcgee]

Confed types this from the holy computer given to him by angels, built entirely with magic and miracles containing 0% science.

[jimboston]

Confed types this from the holy computer given to him by angels, built entirely with magic and miracles containing 0% science.

He’ll ignore you.

The only science he thinks sucks is the science that disagrees with his predetermined world view.

[HitRed]

That’s everyone

[mookiemcgee]

Confed types this from the holy computer given to him by angels, built entirely with magic and miracles containing 0% science.

He’ll ignore you.

The only science he thinks sucks is the science that disagrees with his predetermined world view.

The reality is organized religion evolved as a technology for societal organization and control. It's developed into a form of sociological science over the years, and only exclusionary religions (ours is right so yours must be wrong) tend to entirely discount science as bad/evil in the interest of preserving that control.


Confed =

[HitRed]

Freedom to choose doesn't lead to absolute control.

[mookiemcgee]

Freedom to choose doesn't lead to absolute control.

Hitred comes out against any laws banning abortion, never thought I'd see the day.

[ConfederateSS]

Confed types this from the holy computer given to him by angels, built entirely with magic and miracles containing 0% science.

He’ll ignore you.

The only science he thinks sucks is the science that disagrees with his predetermined world view.

-------Close Mookie, I took a jar of Mole'...To have it blessed by a priest at Holy Redeemer Church, Making it Holy Mole'... ...Then poured it on my keyboard...That could explain my typing, the keyboard is sticky all the time...But Blessed...whew!!! ... ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)...

-----------I thought, hope everyone's world view...Would be not exploiting children, especially, The science field, chemical,Big Pharma, and most of all Doctors... Children,The Children...that is just sick and evil... Science people...to use them as cash cows... ...Or political, As the Chinese brainwash American children, with Tik Tok Tech...just horrible......

[mookiemcgee]

Confed types this from the holy computer given to him by angels, built entirely with magic and miracles containing 0% science.

He’ll ignore you.

The only science he thinks sucks is the science that disagrees with his predetermined world view.

-------Close Mookie, I took a jar of Mole'...To have it blessed by a priest at Holy Redeemer Church, Making it Holy Mole'... ...Then poured it on my keyboard...That could explain my typing, the keyboard is sticky all the time...But Blessed...whew!!! ... ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)...

-----------I thought, hope everyone's world view...Would be not exploiting children, especially, The science field, chemical,Big Pharma, and most of all Doctors... Children,The Children...that is just sick and evil... Science people...to use them as cash cows... ...Or political, As the Chinese brainwash American children, with Tik Tok Tech...just horrible......

Thank God your faith makes it still function mostly ok (outside of the weird sizing of your fonts).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Crusade

[ConfederateSS]

--------Look out Davey Jones and Jonah...The Windmills that are made with stuffed mined by children slaves...So the go greeners can save the world....
-------------- They want/ are building Huge Windmills on the New Jersey coast....Will be an eye sore yes....The Windmill companies are surveying the ocean floor....Pounding it with sonar...Yay, science... ...The go greeners were trying to shut down lobster fishing in Maine...It was supposed to be killing endangered whales....Not really...
-------------- The Windmill project is killing endangered whales.... Another dead whale on a Jersey shore,washed up....The sonar is confusing and killing endangered whales...Go Green... ....... ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)...

[jimboston]

Confed types this from the holy computer given to him by angels, built entirely with magic and miracles containing 0% science.

He’ll ignore you.

The only science he thinks sucks is the science that disagrees with his predetermined world view.

-------Close Mookie, I took a jar of Mole'...To have it blessed by a priest at Holy Redeemer Church, Making it Holy Mole'... ...Then poured it on my keyboard...That could explain my typing, the keyboard is sticky all the time...But Blessed...whew!!! ... ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)...

-----------I thought, hope everyone's world view...Would be not exploiting children, especially, The science field, chemical,Big Pharma, and most of all Doctors... Children,The Children...that is just sick and evil... Science people...to use them as cash cows... ...Or political, As the Chinese brainwash American children, with Tik Tok Tech...just horrible......

So the Catholic Church didn’t exploit children when they let priest get away with diddling kids for years???

It’s funny… the whole Q thing is supposed to be about how corrupt Dems/Libs rape children.

There is of course no proof of this.

Yet there are documented cases of child abuse over decades in the Catholic Church… but do Q supporters go after organized religion.

[DoomYoshi]

It seems that you forgot your point in the OP, DY.

Nope.

What is significant about the Bohr diagram?

It's just an example of something that has been known to be wrong for 90 years, and yet is still printed in every chemistry textbook. When I was in high school chem, we spent weeks on Bohr diagrams. Why? They imply rotational energy of electrons when there has never been any measured, etc., etc. As a high school science teacher, I thought you would understand this dilemma. That time would be better spent learning how to write in the R programming language so people can build the statistical acumen to understand quantum fields.

And the improvements to and development of lithium ion battery did win a Nobel Prize in 2020 or so. BUT DISRUPTIVE? Hardly. That was an improvement of the Lithium battery and Ni-Cads and Fuel Cells. It was a matter NOT of improved batteries, but which one works the best. I have taught a WHOLE Lesson on ElectroChemistry. What was my Focus? The Lithium ion battery, OF COURSE. Why? It is the one we ALL are most familiar with and most useful NOW. BUT NOT DISRUPTIVE. The trajectory was to improve the portable and rechargeable battery.

I do not disagree. But to call it, or many other of the last 20 Nobel prizes obscure or incredibly trivial is offensive to the good men and women working in chemistry today.

And GFP? sounds like BioChem to me, that I already state. and the same for cell membrane channels. You try to argue against my point(s), but instead you merely validate my point(s).

The very aptly named green fluorescent protein — or GFP as it is almost universally known — is a barrel-shaped protein made up of 238 amino acids.Oct 8, 2008

The 2008 Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien for the discovery and development of the so-called green fluorescent protein

Green fluorescent protein | Nature Chemistry
The very aptly named green fluorescent protein — or GFP as it is almost universally known — is a barrel-shaped protein made up of 238 amino acids. Oct 8, 2008

I wasn't arguing against you. I don't know where you got that idea from. Either way, biochemistry IS chemistry. It's in the name and it is not a misnomer. Biochemistry scientific achievements are awarded under the Chemistry category in the Nobel prize. My point (arguing against Dukasaur) is that these are not obscure and they don't belong in the physiology category either. My suspicion is that Duke did not read the list of the past 20 years of Nobel laureates before he made that claim. Or if he did read, he might have read "for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry" and thought "I don't know what that means, therefore it must be obscure or meaningless, so I am going to ad hominem attack the laureates and diminish the impact of their work". It was a tasteless post by Duke that I was replying to.

And that is your only response to me? I made several points; 11 in my initial post in this thread. And a lengthy reply, later.

I didn't respond to you at all, until now.

[jimboston]

Didn’t we already agree science isn’t dead?

That there’s just a lot of bland science, but there is still plenty of disruptive science.

[jusplay4fun]

It seems that you forgot your point in the OP, DY.

Nope.

What is significant about the Bohr diagram?

It's just an example of something that has been known to be wrong for 90 years, and yet is still printed in every chemistry textbook. When I was in high school chem, we spent weeks on Bohr diagrams. Why? They imply rotational energy of electrons when there has never been any measured, etc., etc. As a high school science teacher, I thought you would understand this dilemma. That time would be better spent learning how to write in the R programming language so people can build the statistical acumen to understand quantum fields.

And the improvements to and development of lithium ion battery did win a Nobel Prize in 2020 or so. BUT DISRUPTIVE? Hardly. That was an improvement of the Lithium battery and Ni-Cads and Fuel Cells. It was a matter NOT of improved batteries, but which one works the best. I have taught a WHOLE Lesson on ElectroChemistry. What was my Focus? The Lithium ion battery, OF COURSE. Why? It is the one we ALL are most familiar with and most useful NOW. BUT NOT DISRUPTIVE. The trajectory was to improve the portable and rechargeable battery.

I do not disagree. But to call it, or many other of the last 20 Nobel prizes obscure or incredibly trivial is offensive to the good men and women working in chemistry today.

And GFP? sounds like BioChem to me, that I already state. and the same for cell membrane channels. You try to argue against my point(s), but instead you merely validate my point(s).

The very aptly named green fluorescent protein — or GFP as it is almost universally known — is a barrel-shaped protein made up of 238 amino acids.Oct 8, 2008

The 2008 Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien for the discovery and development of the so-called green fluorescent protein

Green fluorescent protein | Nature Chemistry
The very aptly named green fluorescent protein — or GFP as it is almost universally known — is a barrel-shaped protein made up of 238 amino acids. Oct 8, 2008

I wasn't arguing against you. I don't know where you got that idea from. Either way, biochemistry IS chemistry. It's in the name and it is not a misnomer. Biochemistry scientific achievements are awarded under the Chemistry category in the Nobel prize. My point (arguing against Dukasaur) is that these are not obscure and they don't belong in the physiology category either. My suspicion is that Duke did not read the list of the past 20 years of Nobel laureates before he made that claim. Or if he did read, he might have read "for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry" and thought "I don't know what that means, therefore it must be obscure or meaningless, so I am going to ad hominem attack the laureates and diminish the impact of their work". It was a tasteless post by Duke that I was replying to.

And that is your only response to me? I made several points; 11 in my initial post in this thread. And a lengthy reply, later.

I didn't respond to you at all, until now.

I do not make a big deal about Bohr diagrams. It is important to know that:

1) electrons are outside the nucleus;
2) the number of electrons in the valence energy level is important;
3) # of electrons vs. a FILLED valence energy level is the key to many reactions of most elements;
4) the exact motion of electrons about the nucleus is not really important;
5) Quantum mechanics supersedes Bohr model and diagram;
6) Quantum mechanics is very difficult to understand;
7) The analogy of an atom to the solar system works well enough to keep the model of the atom and its electrons simple enough for most students.
8 ) For ALL these reasons, I do NOT make my students do and draw Bohr diagrams. And as one still teaching High Chemistry, I do not see an emphasis there in textbooks.
9) To me, the more important concepts, that I spend LOTS of time engaged in are: mole calculations, chemical names and formula, writing and balancing chemical equations, and stoichiometry. This is addressed by the Virginia statewide tests and the national AP Chemistry Exam. What you learned in high school Chemistry years ago is not a topic I can really address.
10) And you never stated if you took a Chemistry class/course, or any science class, beyond high school.

we spent weeks on Bohr diagrams. Why?

Why? I do not know. Clearly, now in retrospect, those weeks were not time well spent.

My point about BioChemistry is that this where most of the attention and much money and much promise are in our current world. I think I agree with Duk that "normal" (non-Bio) Chemistry is a mature and it seems that most of what we know satisfies our models and theories to explain Chemistry. I have not recently perused every Nobel Prize in Chemistry in the past 25 years, but the recent award relevant to the lithium ion battery is one of the few on "normal" or traditional chemistry. Traditional Chemistry, to me, is mostly doing improvements of current products and materials. That is where the research money is going, based on recent discoveries and achievements.

And yes, of course, Biochemistry is a branch of Chemistry.

And I thought that the MAIN point of your thread is to discuss DISRUPTIVE Scientific discoveries. I think atomic theory, and later modified by Quantum (or Wave) Mechanics, have been the disruptive theories and ideas in Chemistry. And basically, they explain most of Chemistry well enough and have not been replaced, nor is there any impetus to find a better theory. And Quantum Mechanics is basically 100 years old. Sounds mature to me.

Physics is more exciting (to me) in that there is likely more disruptive ideas there than in Chemistry. Geology seems mostly settled, too, as I stated before. Better understanding of DNA is the main driving force in Biology at this time; species extinction may become more significant as we try to understand WHY (its cause(s)) and how to PREVENT this.

[DoomYoshi]

Ok. Makes sense.

The main thesis of this thread was that scientists should spend more time in church.

Here's an article on click chemistry (it is organic chem), in case you are interested. This was a disruptive find - according to the article, using common sense had never been tried before!

https://www.chemistryworld.com/features ... 66.article

[jusplay4fun]

Ok. Makes sense.

The main thesis of this thread was that scientists should spend more time in church.

Here's an article on click chemistry (it is organic chem), in case you are interested. This was a disruptive find - according to the article, using common sense had never been tried before!

https://www.chemistryworld.com/features ... 66.article

This was interesting to me, from your cited article:

‘Within a few days, I was [running the reaction] in my own plasma and in my own blood, just a little bit of copper sulfate and ascorbate, which I got from [supermarket] Trader Joe’s,’ recalls Fokin. While he had first used copper(i), he quickly settled on reducing a cheaper copper(ii) source in situ after thinking back to a high school experiment in which copper(ii) is reduced with ascorbate (vitamin C). But Fokin would later find that even solid copper wire could catalyse the reaction.

I did a few reactions of this type; the main point for me was to have some FUN with some reactions and see major color changes. My students enjoyed it. I do recall that iron undergoing a change of oxidation number. We likely did one or more reactions with copper, too.

As I recall, we did this experiment after the AP Chemistry Exam, which is given in early May.

This is called "Click Chemistry" and that has a nice ring to it; more from the same article:

But this common sense has now earned Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and Barry Sharpless the 2022 chemistry Nobel prize for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.

(...)

But things didn’t go as planned. ‘When Christian did that reaction, he got a by-product, he never could get his acyl chloride to couple,’ Meldal recalls. ‘He came down to me and was initially really devastated because his project didn’t work.’ But instead of throwing it out, the team took a closer look. ‘We realised that this was very, very fortunate what we had discovered,’ Tornøe says. The reaction was amazingly clean and efficient. ‘We called it QCT reaction – quantitative chemical transformation,’ Meldal says. ‘This never caught on because click is of course much nicer.’

It took the team only a few months to turn their serendipitous discovery into a workable methodology, compatible with solid-phase peptide synthesis. ‘We immediately started to utilise this in an orthogonal fashion to make chemistries that were probably impossible in all other ways,’ Meldal recalls. ‘When we presented it as a poster at the American Peptide Symposium, there was just standard interest from people at the conference. But maybe peptide chemists are not that interested in alternative chemistries,’ he laughs.

Meldal’s and Sharpless’s papers came out within a few months of each other. At the time, neither team knew of the other’s work, though their reaction would soon make waves in the synthesis community. ‘I remember running the copper reaction for the first time in my life,’ says Jiajia Dong from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, who would later join Sharpless’s team. ‘I saw the result coming out of the LC-MS. “Holy cow,” I said, “it’s only one peak – I never saw any reaction like this!”’ The stark difference between click chemistry and many other transformations is obvious to every chemist who ever had to do reaction optimisation. ‘In 2019, we did reactions with 1200 azides under the same conditions – and almost every one of them was quantitative in yield,’ Dong says.

Like many Nobel Prizes, this has LOTS of esoteric details. It brings me back to my days of studying Organic Chemistry and doing Syntheis experiment in the Organic Lab.

Thanks for sharing, DY.

[Dukasaur]

I wasn't arguing against you. I don't know where you got that idea from. Either way, biochemistry IS chemistry. It's in the name and it is not a misnomer. Biochemistry scientific achievements are awarded under the Chemistry category in the Nobel prize. My point (arguing against Dukasaur) is that these are not obscure and they don't belong in the physiology category either. My suspicion is that Duke did not read the list of the past 20 years of Nobel laureates before he made that claim. Or if he did read, he might have read "for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry" and thought "I don't know what that means, therefore it must be obscure or meaningless, so I am going to ad hominem attack the laureates and diminish the impact of their work". It was a tasteless post by Duke that I was replying to.

It's absolutely not an ad hominem attack in any way. If anything, it's a big compliment to these researchers that in a mature science where almost everything is already known, they are managing to tease out some unexplored territory and make some new discoveries.

My point (which you conveniently blew past without comment) is that as the set of known things grows, the set of unknown things shrinks, and so it's more and more difficult for anything new to be discovered.

[DoomYoshi]

I wasn't arguing against you. I don't know where you got that idea from. Either way, biochemistry IS chemistry. It's in the name and it is not a misnomer. Biochemistry scientific achievements are awarded under the Chemistry category in the Nobel prize. My point (arguing against Dukasaur) is that these are not obscure and they don't belong in the physiology category either. My suspicion is that Duke did not read the list of the past 20 years of Nobel laureates before he made that claim. Or if he did read, he might have read "for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry" and thought "I don't know what that means, therefore it must be obscure or meaningless, so I am going to ad hominem attack the laureates and diminish the impact of their work". It was a tasteless post by Duke that I was replying to.

It's absolutely not an ad hominem attack in any way. If anything, it's a big compliment to these researchers that in a mature science where almost everything is already known, they are managing to tease out some unexplored territory and make some new discoveries.

My point (which you conveniently blew past without comment) is that as the set of known things grows, the set of unknown things shrinks, and so it's more and more difficult for anything new to be discovered.

Ok, I got the main point, I just didn't like the tone you took. There are still incredible Nobel prizes in both Physics and Chemistry. 2010 Physics prize really takes the cake as they were able to find a hypothesized chemical with millions of applications using only a piece of scotch tape and a pencil*. If MacGyver did that, people would shut off the tv in disbelief.




*They also had some oxidized substrate and a whole laboratory, but that's not important.

[Dukasaur]

I wasn't arguing against you. I don't know where you got that idea from. Either way, biochemistry IS chemistry. It's in the name and it is not a misnomer. Biochemistry scientific achievements are awarded under the Chemistry category in the Nobel prize. My point (arguing against Dukasaur) is that these are not obscure and they don't belong in the physiology category either. My suspicion is that Duke did not read the list of the past 20 years of Nobel laureates before he made that claim. Or if he did read, he might have read "for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry" and thought "I don't know what that means, therefore it must be obscure or meaningless, so I am going to ad hominem attack the laureates and diminish the impact of their work". It was a tasteless post by Duke that I was replying to.

It's absolutely not an ad hominem attack in any way. If anything, it's a big compliment to these researchers that in a mature science where almost everything is already known, they are managing to tease out some unexplored territory and make some new discoveries.

My point (which you conveniently blew past without comment) is that as the set of known things grows, the set of unknown things shrinks, and so it's more and more difficult for anything new to be discovered.

Ok, I got the main point, I just didn't like the tone you took. There are still incredible Nobel prizes in both Physics and Chemistry. 2010 Physics prize really takes the cake as they were able to find a hypothesized chemical with millions of applications using only a piece of scotch tape and a pencil*. If MacGyver did that, people would shut off the tv in disbelief.




*They also had some oxidized substrate and a whole laboratory, but that's not important.

Cool.

You're probably tired of hearing the story, but one of my proudest moments was when I calculated the orbit of Jupiter using a tree branch, a ruler, and the clock on the VCR and came within about 3% of the actual figure.

[TeeGee]

Cool.

You're probably tired of hearing the story, but one of my proudest moments was when I calculated the orbit of Jupiter using a tree branch, a ruler, and the clock on the VCR and came within about 3% of the actual figure.

I'd love to hear this one

A tree branch?

[KoolBak]

"Scientists should spend more time in church"

Sadly, that has to be one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen here.

Church is to reinforce / solidify your FAITH.

Faith has NOTHING to do with science or reality. Do you have ANY clue as to the vastness of our universe? It in no way coincides with any reality organized religion (which was all dreamed up pre-awareness) lays down. Scientific discovery literally has disproven the majority of religion. Thus the whole faith thing....your christian bigwigs agree and literally teach this as fact in theology classes. I attended them.

Or are you saying all people should be raised with faith to have better morals?

That doesn't work either. The two worst people I've ever personally known were die hard Christians. Disgusting.

Anyway....not worth arguing. Faith is for your "soul". Keep it. Revel in it. Don't push it on others

[ConfederateSS]

Ok. Makes sense.

The main thesis of this thread was that scientists should spend more time in church.

Here's an article on click chemistry (it is organic chem), in case you are interested. This was a disruptive find - according to the article, using common sense had never been tried before!

https://www.chemistryworld.com/features ... 66.article

------------ Yes, Doomy...... Scientists, everyone should spend more time in Church... Church couldn't hurt....
-------------- As science, medicine...continues to make Mankind weak...New ways to hurt, kill Mankind...Making people, cripples, deaf, blind, killing, take COVID/ then vaccines...the latest...
------------- JESUS, never made anyone a cripple, deaf , blind...killed anyone...In fact , HE healed people, through faith , even brought back someone from the dead...On Earth...As HE leds the way TO HIS KINGDOM...
-------------- CHECKMATE ... ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)...