IUBio

question on ACTION POTENTIALS!

Richard Norman rsnorman at mw.mediaone.net
Tue Jan 19 20:03:52 EST 1999


Walter Eric Johnson wrote in message <782ueh$980$1 at news.tamu.edu>...
>That's the problem with trying to explain "how neurons could
>work" rather than "how neurons work".  It bothers me to see
>fanciful explanations of how neurons could work when there is
>no evidence to support those explanations.  From there, it is
>just a short step to rationalizing that the neurons really do
>work that way because they could work that way.

Welcome to the real world!  Experimental science is very
different, indeed.  Even the physicists I know seem to
have difficulty understanding just how complex biological
system really are.

>FWIW, I'm working on my PhD in Computer Science and am going
>back and taking courses that I need to understand the real
>neurons better without jumping to conclusions based on
>limited knowledge of only one aspect of the phenomena.
>
>What's really strange is to take a course for which you had
>the prerequisites well before anyone else in the class was
>born and before the prof was in college or even high school.


Probably not if you take my course!  (Truman was president when
I started high school)  And, besides, intro biology has changed
just a wee bit in the intervening many decades, not to mention
biochemistry and cellular/molecular biology!






More information about the Neur-sci mailing list

Send comments to us at biosci-help [At] net.bio.net