The Genes You Know Today May Not Be the Ones You Know Tomorrow

Every semester, I start my introductory biology class with a discussion of why learning skills and habits of mind are more important than “facts” alone. To impress upon them that knowledge changes, I take advantage of the fact that I’m far more chronologically enhanced than my students and present examples of what I learned in introductory biology, and even in graduate school. That the theory of endosymbiosis was relatively new and the mechanism of chemiosmotic oxidative phosphorylation not yet taught impresses them little. That plate tectonics was relatively new impresses them a little more. However, when I tell them that (at least some of) the faculty who taught me, even in graduate school, earned their doctorates before the nature of DNA was understood, they are surprised and appear to understand the point that what they learn today may be completely revised in their lifetimes, and that learning is a lifetime endeavor. When I think about my professors, I also recall how, as a new faculty member myself, I began to become more cognizant of what I did not know as I began to teach, but still felt very current in my knowledge. I did not expect my knowledge to become dated; I expected to add to my …