Wheel of Reason Activity: Analyze the Logic of Biochemistry

Biochemistry

Use this template for working through the logic of the profession, subject, or discipline now:

Specimen Answer:

Purpose:

The goal of biochemistry is to determine the biological foundations of life through chemistry. Its aim is to use chemistry to study events on the scale of structures so small they are invisible even with a microscope.

Question(s):

How do small-scale structures and events underlie the larger-scale phenomena of life? What chemical processes underlie living things? What is
their structure? And what do they do? How can we correlate observations made at different levels of the organization of life (from the smallest to the largest)? How can we produce drugs that target undesirable events in living creatures?

Information:

The kinds of information biochemists seek are: information about the kind of chemical units out of which life is constructed, about the process by which key chemical reactions essential to the construction of life take place.

Inference(s):

Biochemists seek to make judgments about the complex process of maintenance and growth of which life basically consists. In short, they seek
to tell us how life functions at the chemical level.

Concept(s):

There are a number of ideas essential to understanding biochemistry: the idea of levels of organization of life processes (molecular, sub-
cellular particle, cellular, organ, and total organism), the idea of life structures and life processes, the idea of the dynamics of life, the idea of the unity of life processes amid a diversity of life forms, etc.

Assumption(s):

Some of the key assumptions behind biochemical thinking are: that there are chemical foundations to life, that the techniques of chemistry are most fitting for the study of life at the level of molecules, that it is possible to use chemical ideas to explain life, that it is possible to analyze and discover the key agents in fundamental life process, and that it is possible, ultimately, to eliminate unwanted life processes while strengthening or maintaining desirable ones.

Implication(s):

The general implications of biochemistry are that we will increasingly be able to enhance human and other forms of life, and to diminish disease and other undesirable states, by application of chemical strategies.

Point(s) of View:

The biochemical viewpoint sees the chemical level as revealing fundamental disclosures about the nature, function, and foundations of life. It sees chemistry as solving the most basic biological problems. It sees life processes at the chemical level to be highly unified and consistent, despite the fact that life process at the whole-animal level are highly diversified.