Gaps in understanding

"Our favorite hormone is a small molecule called auxin, known to regulate many aspects of plant growth and development through effects on cell division and cell elongation," says Indiana University biologist Mark Estelle, who has figured out how plants grow (Estelle Lab diagram, not captioned at the website, presumably illustrates the genetic networks active during auxin-induced cell growth.).

"In 1885, scientists discovered a plant-growth hormone and called it auxin. Ever since, its mechanism of action had been a black box, with scientists divided into warring camps about precisely how the hormone works," writes Sharon Begley in today's WSJ Science Journal (subscription only), a helpful follow-up to our post yesterday re the emotionally-charged evolution-vs-intelligent-design culture wars:

When scientists announced [in Nature] last week that they had figured out how plants grow, one had to take note, not only because of the cleverness required to crack a puzzle that dates to 1885, but because of what it says about controversy and certainty in science -- and about the evolution debate.

Yet biology classes don't mention the Auxin Wars. Again and again, impressionable young people are told that auxin promotes plant growth, when the reality is more complex and there has been raging controversy over how it does so.

"Our favorite organism is the small crucifer Arabidopsis thaliana, a plant that is particularly amenable to genetic studies," says Professor Estelle. The tiny weed is a celebrity performer in the genome-studies field. Click here to view Indiana University biologist Robert P. Hangarter's film short "Negative gravitropism of stems" starring the versatile plant. (Hangarter's plant-movement movie is unrelated to Estelle's growth-hormone studies and is included here just for fun.)

WSJ science writer Begley continues:

Which brings us to evolution. Advocates of teaching creationism (or its twin, intelligent design) have adopted the slogan, "Teach the controversy." That sounds eminently sensible. But it is disingenuous. For as the auxin saga shows, virtually no area of science is free of doubt or debate or gaps in understanding.

There is no serious debate that evolution happens, only deeper questions (left to college and graduate school), such as whether it proceeds gradually or in spasms. "It's dishonest to single out evolution," Prof. [Sean] Carroll says, "when the very nature of science is to have unresolved questions."

That's what keeps things interesting.

Comments

[goomp]

It seems to me that to understand the human condition one should try to have an understanding what scientific inquiry has learned and the history of both science and of religious beliefs.

[Sissy Willis]

Very sensible, but no one ever accused our species of being sensible.

[Tuck]

Not at all disingenuous - given the highly charged temper of the topic, teaching the controversy allows students to make up their own minds: one can reasonably anticipate - for the most part - sensible results.

[Hungry Valley]

Actually, while the concept of auxins had been postulated, the first one identifified was abscisic acid. Discovered by Frederick Addicott at the University of California, Davis, in 1963.

[Michael]

AHA! I've always said this, I've just never had it confirmed until today...

Yes, the purpose of science is to find the truth, no matter where it leads. And the truth, as it stands today, is that what science knows is dwarfed by what it doesn't know, and by what it thought it knew, but when it went further and looked some more, found out it didn't know to begin with. What the good scientist calls "unresolved issues".

I agree with Tuck. Until we absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt know the truth (note the setup of an impossible standard-Gosh I sound like a liberal--for shame!) which we never will, we cannot rule anything out, including ID.

Teach it as unsettled point, along with what science has found so far, and the caveat that science, and religion, have both been wrong before.