life in 553

I know that this blog is long overdue! If not for the imminent examinations, this would not have materialized. I’m trying to delay studying…Unfortunately, the dreadfulness of studying has not compelled me to do the laundry, which is by far the most dreadful thing to do. A friend told me that the limiting factor for guys to do the laundry is underwear, I can testify that it is the same for girls, for me at least.

Recently, I’ve been entertaining the thought of majoring in “Evolutionary Biology”. Imagine the reactions I will yield from people back home when I tell them, “I aspire to be an evolutionary biologist”. Being very good and practical Singaporeans, I expect a majority of them to ask about “job prospects”, very politely of course. The Evolution in Action course this semester really inspired me to dig deeper into evolutionary theory. I am however, still not convinced that all organisms evolved from a single ancestor. Evolutionary theories are so much fun, there’s a lot of reconciliation to be done between theories and even more to discover. The biggest, non-academic issue for me right now concerns the naked mole-rat. Thinking about the possibility of having evolved from a common ancestor as the naked mole-rat, the foulest animal on planet earth, makes me cringe. They are truly an oddity - neither mole nor rat, eusocial animal, and worse of all, they are cold-blooded. One famous researcher (sorry, I can’t be arsed to Google your name) once described them as looking like a human penis with teeth. SERIOUSLY, WHAT IS THIS ANIMAL?!

I digressed. For a number of people, Evolution as a science conjures the same sentiments as Psychology as a branch of good, old, Medicine. They think that it’s utter bullshit and dismiss it completely. I must admit that I chose to take Evolution in Action by method of elimination - I chose it over Boring Biometrics. It’s amazing how it’s now my favourite course. I keep putting off Physiology and Dynamic Cell studying for EIA.

My point is that, Evolution is so much more than Humans and Primates. It’s cool that whilst most sciences (artificial intelligence, aerospace engineering, blah blah) move “forward”, evolution is bidirectional. For example, we use present day microorganisms to postulate what microorganisms might have been like in the first 3 billion years on earth. Also, you can come up with totally ridiculous hypotheses e.g Acne in humans is an adaptation deterring mating during puberty because we look ugly and don’t have cash. Anything which is plausible can be tested.

I went to the NUS website today and found out that they call biology - Life Sciences. Before this morning, it never occurred to me that “Life Sciences” is so much more marketable than Biology. Very fashionable, very attractive. You can almost see the money rolling into Singapore with “Life Sciences”. “Biology”, on the other hand, reminds everyone of Lam Peng Kwan’s O-level textbook. A couple of weeks ago, I learnt that 50% of the NUS science faculty is made up of biology majors, or rather Life Science Majors. With the unrelenting governmental effort to promote Life Science, I wonder how many of us are actually doing this out of a genuine love for the subject. Aye, Biology has been hailed as “the science of the century”, I’m not saying this because I’m trying to start some trivial “which subject is better” debate, but I really can’t imagine spending 3-4 years studying something as frustrating as biology without first loving the subject! The hope of securing a good job in swanky Biopolis just isn’t enough!