Science for Science's Sake

Razib pointed out this blog article on theory in biology. The author deals with three, self defined, points:

1. Unifying theory in biology.

2. Theory vs. experimental biology.

3. Justification through medical applications.

His first point, that biology (or a given biological discipline) lacks a unifying theory, is a bit silly and comes across as physics envy. But even physics doesn't have a unifying theory, with different models for small objects and large objects. In his second point, he argues that there is a rift between theoretical and experimental biologists. He is correct, there is a rift, but it's between computational/quantitative and experimental/wet-lab biologists. The theorists are a subset of computational biologists, which also includes data miners.

His third point, however, deserves further attention. The author argues that we shouldn't have to justify a scientific discipline based on its immediate applications (in the case of biology, these would be medical applications). He writes:

"Current experimental work, and biology as a whole, suffer from a serious problem--the perception that their existence is only justified as a tool for medicine. Biology is a science, with its own set of fundamental and basic objectives. To require biological research to forgo the foundations and focus on applications is bad for both."

A large chunk of life science's research is of the biomedical variety, but not all of biology is about medicine (or humans for that matter). And model organisms (which the author mentions) should not simply be models for human disease. If you want to learn about eukaryotes, pick the easiest eukaryote with which to work. If you want to study plants, pick the best plant model. Many biologists (such as myself) don't let human disease dictate the direction of their research. But so much funding for biological research (in the United States) comes from the NIH, which means you often need to find some connection to medical applications. Sure, the NSF dishes out some cash, but it's nowhere near the powerhouse as the NIH.

Interestingly, the issue of applications for biological research comes up in Jerry Coyne's review of David Mindell's The Evolving World: Evolution in Everyday Life. Coyne compares evolution to astronomy:

"Other fascinating aspects of science may lack practical application (work on black holes, for instance), but these apparently don't need justification because they don't strike at the core of human values as evolution seems to do."

Of course, there are applications to evolutionary biology, such as "plant and animal breeding, understanding the evolution of drug resistance in microbes and pesticide resistance in insects, darwinian medicine, and evolutionary conservation biology." But Coyne argues that we shouldn't justify research based on its applications. In fact, doing so makes it sound like the purpose of the research (in this case evolutionary biology) are the applications.

"Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say. Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasn't evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of 'like begets like'. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all."

That's not to say that evolutionary biology is wrong; evolutionary theory is a very fruitful area of research. Evolutionary biologists have answered many questions and are currently pursuing the answers to many more. But it's pure research, and it shouldn't be looked down upon because it lacks practical applications. The lack of applications is probably the reason for the deficiency of non-biomedical funding.

Why study evolutionary biology? Coyne offers this answer:

"In the end, the true value of evolutionary biology is not practical but explanatory. It answers, in the most exquisitely simple and parsimonious way, the age-old question: "How did we get here?" It gives us our family history writ large, connecting us with every other species, living or extinct, on Earth. It shows how everything from frogs to fleas got here via a few easily grasped biological processes. And that, after all, is quite an accomplishment."

We study evolutionary biology for the same reason we study any other scientific discipline: to understand how the world (universe, planet, life, etc) works. And it has worked quite well for that purpose. That alone should justify our research.