Hi! Biologist (kind of, Biotechnologist and PhD in Bioinformatics) here.
Biology as a field is way too broad. You can pick any branch of biology and spend your whole life studying that, there will still be things to learn. Having said that, and given that you’re interested in things related to longevity, I would:
First, be aware of one thing: there is a massive difference between Biology and Physics ( I could make a similar comparison with other sciences, but Physics serves my purpose). Feynman explains that VERY well in his book “Surely you are joking Mr Feynman”. Physics students try to develop an intuition about how different models of the world work. Biologists, on the other hand, f**ng adore memorizing names by heart and many old University professors think that it is the right thing to do (e.g. memorizing the names of the molecules involved in the Krebbs cycle). The result is that most things that Biologists studied at some point are simply forgotten. For instance, I studied a few courses on Plant physiology but if you ask me what is the difference between C3 and C4 plants I have no clue. So my first piece of advice is, “try to learn Biology as a physicist would do it”. Learn the important concepts and learn how to reason about those concepts
Second, develop a solid understanding of Molecular Biology. I would buy (or borrow) “Molecular Biology of the Cell” aka “The Albert” and read a few chapters. The concepts you should be very familiar with are:
Replication, transcription, translation
The basics of genetic regulation
Metabolism, especially how the cell obtains energy: respiratory chains, ATP synthesis, etc.
YouTube is your friend. There are very good channels out there explaining complex concepts.
Some of the names of molecules and metabolic pathways will be unavoidable important, e.g. caspases. Use Anki to memorize those. This might contradict a bit the first point, but you will need to develop some “general culture” and this requires memorization. For instance, words you need to be familiar with: respiratory complex system, NADH, telomeres. Words you do NOT be familiar with e.g. Succinate Coenzyme Q Reductase.
Try to explain the different things that you learn without using their real names. E.g. can you find an alternative name for every part of the machinery involved in ATP synthesis? (for example, instead of saying ATP synthase, you could say nano rotor that puts together ADP and P). If you can do that for most things that you learn, you are good to go.
Read “Power, sex, suicide”. It is a popular science book but it has a very good level. If you have spent a few weeks/months reading The Albert, you will understand most of it.
In Biology Evolution is King. You don’t need to understand the in and outs of population genetics, but you certainly benefit from understanding what we know about the origins of mitochondria for instance.
Speak with biologists and test your ideas with them (in the best case scenario, find people having PhDs). Say to them you think “that we could just do some engineering in the telomerase” and we would solve the longevity problem. Some of them might not follow what you are saying. Search for the person that laughs at this statement and tell him/her to explain why this wouldn’t work. That’s the guy you want to hang out with. Speak with him and make him ridicule your ideas. If you understand why the things you are proposing do not make sense, this will mean you are learning.
There is also a complementary point to point number 1. I have seen systematically people coming mostly from the physics and mathematics underestimate the complexity of the ideas/problems in Biology. I have seen a lot of that in LW, so watch out. If someone says that by reading a DNA sample a very powerful computer can derive the moral values of humans, you can bet a lot of money that this person has no clue about biology. To me, it sounds like a biologist saying that the Bayes theorem is false because probabilities are in the mind. Don’t become that arrogant prick. Do your homework!
The above list gives you a very solid understanding of molecular biology, certainly more than the vast majority of philosophers. Something missing is probably Physiology. To learn about physiology, use the same ideas above: YouTube, some manual, present your ideas to other people, etc.
Much thanks for your recommendations & advice, I appreciate you taking the time to share those things!
That’s good to know re: the biology vs physics distinction. I’m great at remembering and playing with concepts and also do decently at memorizing all the “hardware bits” so to say (my intellectual & professional background is mixed and requires proficiency with many concepts as well as being able to RTFM a textbook and memorize things).
I will check out the books you mentioned, other sources, and generally do my homework, hehe :) I love physics, but biology is more fun in a few ways BECAUSE of how many more moving parts you have to deal with (biology uses less abstract maps of the territory than physics, usually, ergo there are more moving parts and thus more covarying input parameters in whatever system one’s dealing with).
What topics in biology do you classify as “you need a deep or solid understanding of them generally before moving to specific subtopics” type topics vs more specialty topics (you touched on this some I think, are there other helpful topics to learn for longevity research in addition to the ones you mentioned)? Looks like evolution, molecular biology, and physiology are what you mentioned so far.
Any recommendations for networking with biologists and finding good mentors in that space? Besides posting in public forums where they might hangout, heh. (any other good places besides this one?)
Any recommendations for networking with biologists and finding good mentors in that space? Besides posting in public forums where they might hangout, heh. (any other good places besides this one?)
Search a good University around where you live / a place where you can go physically. Go to the tab: Research. Find the biology department. See what they are doing. Read their research. Cold email them. Did wonders for me.
Besides, happy to have chat on Skype or similar at some point if you fancy
What topics in biology do you classify as “you need a deep or solid understanding of them generally before moving to specific subtopics” type topics vs more specialty topics (you touched on this some I think, are there other helpful topics to learn for longevity research in addition to the ones you mentioned)? Looks like evolution, molecular biology, and physiology are what you mentioned so far.
Start with Evolution and Molecular Biology in parallel first, once you have the basics right, move to Physiology.
Can you please link some of those Youtube channels you mentioned in the comment? I’d like to learn more about the topic—ideally, grasp the big ideas & what-I-don’t-know (coming from the pure math angle, so not much grounding in the natural sciences).
For reference, I found Introduction to Biology—The Secret of Life (an MIT course at edX) to be very helpful in this kind of exploration.
To tell you the truth, I can’t think of any right now. The reason is that the things I know about Biology I learnt them mostly using books, interacting with people in my environment, teachers, reading in the internet etc. I just assumed that there must be excellent YouTube channels out there because it is the case for other areas that I actively follow (History, Language learning, etc). I have used YouTube (when YouTube was a baby) to understand things as basic as transcription, which is WAY easier to understand once you see the different parts of the cell interacting. The MIT course you mention, I don’t know it, but it is certainly very useful.
Hi! Biologist (kind of, Biotechnologist and PhD in Bioinformatics) here.
Biology as a field is way too broad. You can pick any branch of biology and spend your whole life studying that, there will still be things to learn. Having said that, and given that you’re interested in things related to longevity, I would:
First, be aware of one thing: there is a massive difference between Biology and Physics ( I could make a similar comparison with other sciences, but Physics serves my purpose). Feynman explains that VERY well in his book “Surely you are joking Mr Feynman”. Physics students try to develop an intuition about how different models of the world work. Biologists, on the other hand, f**ng adore memorizing names by heart and many old University professors think that it is the right thing to do (e.g. memorizing the names of the molecules involved in the Krebbs cycle). The result is that most things that Biologists studied at some point are simply forgotten. For instance, I studied a few courses on Plant physiology but if you ask me what is the difference between C3 and C4 plants I have no clue. So my first piece of advice is, “try to learn Biology as a physicist would do it”. Learn the important concepts and learn how to reason about those concepts
Second, develop a solid understanding of Molecular Biology. I would buy (or borrow) “Molecular Biology of the Cell” aka “The Albert” and read a few chapters. The concepts you should be very familiar with are:
Replication, transcription, translation
The basics of genetic regulation
Metabolism, especially how the cell obtains energy: respiratory chains, ATP synthesis, etc.
YouTube is your friend. There are very good channels out there explaining complex concepts.
Some of the names of molecules and metabolic pathways will be unavoidable important, e.g. caspases. Use Anki to memorize those. This might contradict a bit the first point, but you will need to develop some “general culture” and this requires memorization. For instance, words you need to be familiar with: respiratory complex system, NADH, telomeres. Words you do NOT be familiar with e.g. Succinate Coenzyme Q Reductase.
Try to explain the different things that you learn without using their real names. E.g. can you find an alternative name for every part of the machinery involved in ATP synthesis? (for example, instead of saying ATP synthase, you could say nano rotor that puts together ADP and P). If you can do that for most things that you learn, you are good to go.
Read “Power, sex, suicide”. It is a popular science book but it has a very good level. If you have spent a few weeks/months reading The Albert, you will understand most of it.
In Biology Evolution is King. You don’t need to understand the in and outs of population genetics, but you certainly benefit from understanding what we know about the origins of mitochondria for instance.
Speak with biologists and test your ideas with them (in the best case scenario, find people having PhDs). Say to them you think “that we could just do some engineering in the telomerase” and we would solve the longevity problem. Some of them might not follow what you are saying. Search for the person that laughs at this statement and tell him/her to explain why this wouldn’t work. That’s the guy you want to hang out with. Speak with him and make him ridicule your ideas. If you understand why the things you are proposing do not make sense, this will mean you are learning.
A couple of things I wanted to add:
There is also a complementary point to point number 1. I have seen systematically people coming mostly from the physics and mathematics underestimate the complexity of the ideas/problems in Biology. I have seen a lot of that in LW, so watch out. If someone says that by reading a DNA sample a very powerful computer can derive the moral values of humans, you can bet a lot of money that this person has no clue about biology. To me, it sounds like a biologist saying that the Bayes theorem is false because probabilities are in the mind. Don’t become that arrogant prick. Do your homework!
The above list gives you a very solid understanding of molecular biology, certainly more than the vast majority of philosophers. Something missing is probably Physiology. To learn about physiology, use the same ideas above: YouTube, some manual, present your ideas to other people, etc.
Much thanks for your recommendations & advice, I appreciate you taking the time to share those things!
That’s good to know re: the biology vs physics distinction. I’m great at remembering and playing with concepts and also do decently at memorizing all the “hardware bits” so to say (my intellectual & professional background is mixed and requires proficiency with many concepts as well as being able to RTFM a textbook and memorize things).
I will check out the books you mentioned, other sources, and generally do my homework, hehe :) I love physics, but biology is more fun in a few ways BECAUSE of how many more moving parts you have to deal with (biology uses less abstract maps of the territory than physics, usually, ergo there are more moving parts and thus more covarying input parameters in whatever system one’s dealing with).
What topics in biology do you classify as “you need a deep or solid understanding of them generally before moving to specific subtopics” type topics vs more specialty topics (you touched on this some I think, are there other helpful topics to learn for longevity research in addition to the ones you mentioned)? Looks like evolution, molecular biology, and physiology are what you mentioned so far.
Any recommendations for networking with biologists and finding good mentors in that space? Besides posting in public forums where they might hangout, heh. (any other good places besides this one?)
Search a good University around where you live / a place where you can go physically. Go to the tab: Research. Find the biology department. See what they are doing. Read their research. Cold email them. Did wonders for me.
Besides, happy to have chat on Skype or similar at some point if you fancy
Start with Evolution and Molecular Biology in parallel first, once you have the basics right, move to Physiology.
Can you please link some of those Youtube channels you mentioned in the comment? I’d like to learn more about the topic—ideally, grasp the big ideas & what-I-don’t-know (coming from the pure math angle, so not much grounding in the natural sciences).
For reference, I found Introduction to Biology—The Secret of Life (an MIT course at edX) to be very helpful in this kind of exploration.
To tell you the truth, I can’t think of any right now. The reason is that the things I know about Biology I learnt them mostly using books, interacting with people in my environment, teachers, reading in the internet etc. I just assumed that there must be excellent YouTube channels out there because it is the case for other areas that I actively follow (History, Language learning, etc). I have used YouTube (when YouTube was a baby) to understand things as basic as transcription, which is WAY easier to understand once you see the different parts of the cell interacting. The MIT course you mention, I don’t know it, but it is certainly very useful.