What is the “central dogma”?
Maybe you remember from a high school biology class—or from the Molecules and Cells intro class at BC—that the so-called “central dogma” refers to the process by which the transcription of DNA yields RNA and the translation of RNA yields proteins.
Why might you have memorized this fact? I know I memorized it because it was going to be on a test in high school, and since then, it has been useful in innumerable biology classes I’ve taken at BC. The principle is useful for both getting good grades and understanding more complex concepts.
The past two years, I have taken multiple classes involving genetics, and recently, I have been pondering the way in which modern developments in genetics have enabled the steady slide away from wonder in biology classes. The geneticist’s ability to synthesize designer DNA fragments to manipulate functions within the cell has turned the very sequence that encodes all life into a very powerful tool. The line between artificial—what we have constructed—and natural—what we have maybe studied but did not make—is blurred when we take what we have learned about the body’s functions and manipulate them to operate as we desire.
To a degree, this differs little from the way in which vaccines employ the body’s own system to fight against a pathogen in that knowledge about Nature’s function has almost always lent itself to useful manipulation to aid human survival. However, what I’ve noticed in my classwork is part of a greater trend toward a utilitarian view of nature. In The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis writes, “We do not look at trees either as Dryads or as beautiful objects while we cut them into beams…” Is it possible that a similar principle could apply to our very bodies and that the advantages of fashioning our genetic material into useful tools come with a cost, the reduction of the self to mere malleable material?
This is not to say that the sciences as taught at BC are devoid of wonder or meaning, nor is it to say that genetics is the only sphere in which nature has been debunked, demystified, and reduced to mere material. In more than one biology class, I have been impressed by a biology professor’s passionately expressed awe at an intricate molecular pathway, a particular bird, or a creature of the deep. But all too often, scientific knowledge is taught, learned, and committed to memory for use, all without pausing to appreciate its value as part of a beautifully created world.
Pope St. John Paul II warns in Fides et Ratio that, “Without wonder, men and women would lapse into deadening routine and little by little would become incapable of a life which is genuinely personal.” So where are we to turn for a restoration of wonder in our hearts? I have found that the Psalms are a good place to begin.
In Psalm 139, we find a tonic for a reduced view of human nature: “You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am wonderfully made; wonderful are your works!”
In Psalm 19 we find a remedy for a utilitarian view of the natural world’s resources: “How varied are your works, LORD! In wisdom, you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. There is the sea, great and wide! It teems with countless beings, living things both large and small.”
In Psalm 103 we find a cure for the technocratic spirit which presumes to master unending health: “For he knows how we are formed, remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like the grass; he blossoms like a flower in the field. A wind sweeps over it and it is gone; its place knows it no more. But the LORD’s mercy is from age to age…”
And if that isn’t enough inspiration to revive the wonder you have lost, consider this: the very DNA we geneticists presume to design, amplify, synthesize, and edit was sanctified when our Lord was incarnate, taking on flesh—“central dogma” included.
For biology students, and any member of post-scientific-revolution society, the need to revive a sense of wonder at the created world has never been greater. Let us pray for a revival of child-like wonder and respect for creation in our hearts today.
- Veni, Sancte Spiritus - April 30, 2021
- New Bishop of St. Thomas Appointed - March 25, 2021
- Retrieving Wonder in a Scientific Age - March 25, 2021