Form Determines Function: the Heart of Science

I am learning a great deal these days.

I teach four science classes to middle school and freshmen, and one creative writing class, yet I am convinced that they are teaching me as much as, if not more than, I am teaching them. I have discovered the power of words in a new way--the power of words to enlighten, or to confuse, depending on which ones are chosen, and how they are spoken. I am discovering the complexity of ideas I take for granted. I am experiencing the beauty of words even as I am experiencing the beauty of nature.

Words can pass right through us, if we aren't careful. Or they can fall on rich mental soil and sprout into lovely thoughts. I am afraid that much of what I say about science is not endowed with the power to enlighten, because the words were not first infused with meaning....perhaps if my students were able to grow closer to the words, they would be able to grow closer to the wonder of all the organisms and natural phenomena I dearly love and wish to give them a love for as well.

I am hoping to use this blog as a medium for the exploration of scientific words and their meanings. One of the fascinations science holds for me is the way patterns are repeated over and over again in nature--and thus the words that describe these patterns necessarily repeat themselves as well. I wish to take a deeper look at the words--and then the organisms and phenomena that exemplify them, rather than the other way around.

I begin this quest of curiosity by dwelling on the concept of form determining function. I first heard this phrase when studying proteins; the function of every protein is determined by its shape. A protein with a round hole cannot interact with a square substance. That is the simplest pictorial representation of the idea. But the more I think about it, this adage is true for so much of science--perhaps all of it. A fish is streamline-shaped so that it can function as a swimmer. An owl's eyes are large so that they can function under conditions of low light. A tree's roots branch out that they might cover a larger patch of soil, and thus gather as much water and nutrition as possible. Form-determines-function is arguably the heart of science--the over-arching concept.

How interesting that as humans, our form does not always determine our function. God uses the strangest, most unseemly people to accomplish His plans. I am weak, yet He uses me as a vessel for His Gospel, the precious message He has for the world which would seem too important to be entrusted to a frightened fool like me.

A seeming contradiction....the Creator's physical universe displays such logic, while His chosen people are a hodge-podge mess. But He is the Creator....both of logic and....illogic? He can make a square peg fit into a round hole. Perhaps this is where miracles become possible for my intellect to grasp; if logic and its antithesis are both at the disposal of the One who invented them, then there is no reason 5 loaves and 2 fish shouldn't turn into enough food for thousands.

A side-note. But perhaps it explains to me why as a poet I consider many of nature's imperfect forms beautiful....I  love the broken, colorful shards of shells and the knarled, twisted skeletons of once-living trees that wash up on the beach. I find them perfect in their imperfection. Maybe because my spirit sees in it a  metaphor for the way I am perfect in my imperfect mortal state, because I wear the blood of a Lamb. I am beautiful as I am sanctified. As my ugliness is stripped away, beauty comes, because beauty cannot exist without a standard of ugliness to be compared to...can it? My weakness exemplifies His power and His beauty, and in doing so becomes an instrument of beauty itself, or perhaps a frame for beauty....

Form determines function in nature. It is the reason there is so much rich variety, so much amazing detail, so much uniqueness. There are so many functions, and thus so many forms, and yet even the forms all differ from each other slightly...all birds have wings (form) for flying (function), yet there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of different wings out there. My plan is to isolate some of these general functions and forms, and then contemplate the more specific varieties that branch off from these broad categories.