It seems to me that dogmas belong to religion and not science. When the two were mixed in the Geocentric Dogma of the Universe, scientific progress was seriously curtailed and men were persecuted and even killed for suggesting the data contradicted the dogma.
Crick’s postulation that genetic information flowed only a one way street DNA to RNA to Protein, it was promoted as ”The Central Dogma”.
When Temin and Baltimore postulated the mechanism of “reverse transcription”, it was ridiculed and considered anathema until the enzyme reverse transcriptase was proven beyond any doubt. I first hypothesized the existence of a reverse translatase in 1976 that would explain the data of Marvin Fishman’s experiments demonstrating beyond a doubt the existence of an immuneRNA and its conferring antibody specificity. Fishman’s findings have been ignored by subsequent researcher and my hypothesis suggested by some ignored experimental results was and still is considered forbidden by the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology.
Shouldn’t inviolable dogmas belong to religion and not science?
>>>It seems to me that dogmas belong to religion and not science
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I think it doesn't matter what word is used to describe the status of a scientific statement that has become a dominant paradigm. Einstein's theory of relativity is not called a dogma, but for many it has the status of a religion. The same is true for the double helix model of DNA.
The main thing is that these paradigms remain open to criticism and can be refuted. From time to time this happens, and then scientific revolutions occur.
Lev Verkhovsky, the double helix model of DNA is not really dogma. It is the rigid flow of information that constitutes the Central Dogma.
Max Planck tells the story that when he told his academic advisor that he wanted to study physics, he answered that with Newtonian mechanics, thermodynamics and Maxwell’s unified electromagnetism, physics is at an end.
Relativity and quantum mechanics were still to come.
>>>DNA is not really dogma. It is the rigid flow of information that constitutes the Central Dogma.
Sure. I meant that dogma is the three dimensional structure of the polimer. See Preprint DNA: the Double Helix or the Ribbon Helix?
Hi!
Biomechanics covers the dynamics that computes the COM and Moment of Inertia of designed limb to achieve the balanced situation during mobility and in Statical Situation. In addition, there is an important parameter that is called alignment specially in lower extremities that should be restored in order to have a balanced moments and forces exerted from hip to knee and from knee to foot. There are many other aspects that could be accounted for by using Biomechanics such as COR, Material Stiffness, and..... that are needed more time to be described.@
Dear Kamilia Laarej
, I think you wrote everything correctly. But the question is, could it happen that this fundamental rule will be refuted? I have come across various hypothetical mechanisms of information transfer from the protein chain to the nucleotide chain in the literature.In my old (1984) article Essays on Biological Memory I expressed my own conciderations. See https://www.researchgate.net/publication/366249573_Essays_on_Biological_Memory the section IS DOGMA SO IRREFUTABLE? The idea is that protein globules have a block structure and genes have a block structure. There is a correspondence between these two types of blocks. The emergence of a new protein is a new combination of existing blocks. This means that for its synthesis it is necessary to recombine the blocks in nucleic acids (due to DNA recombination, changes in alternative splicing). I assume that this process can be controlled by proteins, that is, there is a flow of information from proteins to nucleic acids.
I am not a researcher in molecular biology, but I understand that science often has a conservative character—and that is not a bad thing. Scientific paradigms provide necessary “order,” structuring research and communication. However, when addressing scientists, we must advocate skepticism and critical thinking, and remain open to improvement and replacement. Of course, any attempt to update or replace a scientific paradigm should meet at least four criteria:
Mathematical or logical consistency;
Scientific falsifiability;
Engineering applicability;
Philosophical clarity. Moreover, these four should be mutually compatible and non-contradictory.
I believe paradigm shifts are inevitable and nothing to be anxious about. What is truly abnormal is when a piece of work already meets all four criteria yet is still rejected for various extraneous reasons—when criticism is discouraged or forbidden, when discourse is controlled to suppress dissent, or when it is dismissed purely on the basis of a particular value orientation. At that point we should reflect on whether science is sliding toward a religious posture—defending entrenched beliefs irrationally. Likewise, if a scientist clings to ready‑made dogmas that lack intellectual depth and practical relevance, while rejecting new ideas and methods, then he or she moves closer to religious faith and farther from the spirit of science.
Allow me to state my values. I do not dislike religion; at times I am even drawn to its wonder and mystery. But if science degenerates into a “scientific religion,” that is something I strongly oppose. History has too many examples of persecuted scientists; I do not wish to be forced to choose between preserving the purity of science and my own life or reputation. Whatever uncertainties society may face, I will persist in my research—because that is, in my view, the most faithful interpretation of what the word “science” should mean.
As it is a unanimously accepted theory that the first life form to ever exist on Earth was RNA, it clearly indicates that DNA evolved much later. However, the discovery of DNA before reverse transcriptase gained more attention and led to the popularization of the central dogma. I believe that carbon dating will further reinforce the concept that life began with an RNA world, not with DNA. During the course of evolution, the key enzyme "reverse transcriptase" was not conserved and passed on to the highest life form existing today i.e., "humans". It is important to recognize that only those life forms carrying this enzyme will persist through Earth’s evolutionary trajectory for millions of years to come
Sheethal Galande thank you for sharing this information. My doctoral dissertation in 1978 was the characterization of a previously unknown syncytIum forming virus of the Retroviridae family of the subfamily spumavirinae In raccoons while testing for rabies which is loaded on this site.
Back in 1977, detection and assay for reverse transcriptase was quite arduous. I am telling you this because it was believed that there was also a similar one in humans since reverse transcriptase activity was detected in some lymphocytic cells. Is this no longer believed?
Data from back then on what was described As immuneRNA led me to believe in a mechanism for generating antibody specificity to novel antigens which I have also presented on this site.
Yeah i missed on to the point of the presence of hTERT in the lymphocytes. The bottom line is that central dogma isn't a rigid rule and RNA should gain more importance since it has a dual ability to encode for a DNA or a protein. It's like RNA is at the apex with two arms (one DNA and the other protein).
David Baltimore, died of cancer on 6 September at age 87.
When he was just 32 Baltimore reported in a rare solo author paper in Nature that the “central dogma” idea put forward by Francis Crick of DNA fame—that genetic information only flowed in one direction from DNA to RNA to proteins—needed an asterisk. In some viruses, he had found, the flow went the other way and RNA became DNA with the help of the reverse transcriptase (RT) enzyme (News from Science, 10 September).
R.I.P.
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