Conclusion to "Clash: A Reflection on Science and Religion Courses at Loras College"

Medical Education and Research Facility at the Carver College of Medicine in Iowa City, IA.  I will most likely be attending the University of Iowa next year for medical school.

             It is a bit surreal to think that I am nearing the end of my undergraduate education and will soon be pursuing a medical degree.  I owe a large portion of my success to my experiences at Loras College, and I believe my courses have prepared me to make a seamless transition into medical school.  For these things, I will forever be grateful of my time at Loras.

            However, what I will remember most about my undergraduate education is the personal transformations I underwent.  I am no longer driven by the thought of financial success, but rather, I see becoming a physician as an opportunity to give back to humanity.  Still, my greatest change has to be in my belief in a higher power.  Some critics of my beliefs have pointed out that I am merely going through an extended period of doubt.  While this is always a possibility, I find the chance of believing in God again highly unlikely.  This is because this decision did not come about lightly, and I believe I am currently the best version of myself.   

            The real question is “Where do I go from here?”  My answer is quite simple.  I foresee carrying out my beliefs much the same as I currently do.  This is a personal system that determines only how I carry out my life.  I am not at all interested in trying to turn others against God.  While I may not agree with them, they are exercising their right to freedom of religion by practicing whatever belief system they hold.  I also will strive to not allow differences in faith to interfere with how I practice medicine.  If a procedure goes against someone else’s belief system, then I must respect his or her wishes even if I believe them to be detrimental.  I can only hope that others will treat my well thought out decision similarly and realize that I am not defined solely by my atheism.

           

Example of Research

Basic outline of Ligation Independent Cloning.  Taken from Bitesize Bio article .

To study a specific gene in a host organism, it must first be inserted into a circular DNA molecule known as a plasmid vector which is compatible with the host’s molecular machinery.  This general process is known as cloning.  DNA cloning is traditionally accomplished through the use of DNA ligase, which is an enzyme that covalently combines the gene of interest with the plasmid molecule through the formation of phosphodiester bonds.  In principle, this biochemical technique is fairly straightforward and simple.  However, the combination of the gene with plasmid is typically a very inefficient procedure due to the in vitro (outside of the host cell) conditions under which the reaction occurs.  Cloning experiments conducted by students at Loras College have been particularly unsuccessful in the recent past.

There is an alternative method to traditional DNA cloning known as ligation-independent cloning (LIC).  This technique was first established in 1990 by Aslanidis and de Jong, and it utilizes multiple non-covalent interactions between complimentary strands of DNA (the gene and the plasmid vector) to circumvent the necessity of an in vitro ligation reaction.  This ligation step is unnecessary in ligation-independent cloning because the non-covalent interactions between the DNA strands are strong enough to allow the gene and plasmid to be successfully inserted into the host without dissociating from one another.  The host cell is then able to use its own DNA ligase to covalently combine the two pieces of DNA.  Once this is accomplished, the cell can begin to produce copies of the protein that gene codes for.

The original goal for my senior thesis project under the guidance of Dr. Kate Cooper was to create a ligation-independent cloning vector to be used for the study of the FCHO2 gene.  After more than a year of work, we were finally able to create this DNA molecule.  The next step of our project was to actually use the plasmid vector in ligation-independent cloning, but it proved difficult to find an established protocol.  The two protocols that I had access to gave contradictory advice, and neither of them gave positive results for the trials I conducted following their work.  Because of this, I was given the task of creating a protocol for the use of the LIC vector within Dr. Cooper’s research group.

I spent a large portion of my Intensive Research Experience J-term course trying to develop a reliable protocol for LIC.  This task was initially daunting because it was my first time performing research without any direct input from my research advisor.  I approached solving my problem by researching the ideal conditions to conduct the cloning reaction under.  However, this proved difficult because I was using an enzyme’s secondary function instead of the action it normally performs.  Therefore, I had to perform multiple trials trying to get my reactants in just the appropriate concentrations for LIC to be successful while trying to keep the protocol economical.  Also, alterations were made to make the protocol as time efficient as possible.  With a great deal of work and a little luck, I was able to produce an efficient and successful LIC protocol.

Since the creation of my LIC protocol, multiple other students, including myself, have used this procedure to successfully complete DNA cloning.  In fact, there has been more cloning accomplished at Loras College in the past month than in the previous five years combined.  It is rewarding to know that my work has directly assisted with the research of my peers and that it will continue to benefit students at Loras College for well into the future.

Reference:

         Aslanidis, C. and de Jong, P. J. (1990).  Ligation-independent cloning of PCR products (LIC-PCR). Nucleic Acids Res. 18, 6069 -6074.

From Questioning to Atheism

Personal photo of St. Peter's (Rome, Italy)

            My first real doubts about the existence of God came about through a Breitbach philosophy courses titled “Belief, Unbelief, and the Good Life.”  In this course, I was challenged to read and dissect the writings of historically significant atheists such as Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud.  This was the first time I had truly practiced the idea of reflective thinking in my undergraduate education.  The claims that these writers were making against Catholicism and religion constantly haunted me.  Ludwig Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity was the most thought provoking piece I encountered due to his belief that God is merely a human projection of the perfection of Man.  I simply did not have what I consider to be logical counterarguments against the claims these writers were making.  Still, I placed pressure on myself to write the assignments as if I remained firmly rooted in Catholic doctrinism over fear of consequences within the Breitbach program.  In retrospect, this was a childish fear because Fr. Wathier and my classmates have been extremely supportive of alternative viewpoints.  While this course was likely designed to strengthen our faith in God, it caused me to seriously question everything I had previously believed in.

            These feelings were not warmly welcomed by me at the beginning.  I imposed an incredible amount of pressure on myself to get rid of any thoughts of disbelief because I thought it would be socially unacceptable to be an atheist.  For this reason, I placed a great deal of importance on my J-term trip to Italy that dealt with studying the origins of the Catholic Church.  I viewed this trip as an opportunity to reignite my passion for religion.  What I really experienced was just the opposite.  In Rome, I was surrounded by what I believe to be the unnecessary extravagance of the Catholic Church and the secular nature of society in allegedly one of the holiest places in the world.  Surprisingly, the location that had the biggest impact on me was Assisi.  This is because of the simplicity that the town exuded and the surrounding beauty of the rolling hills.  It was here, with the help of meditation, that I began to realize that living without God would not be as negative as I had previously thought. My strict set or morals would not deteriorate just because I did not believe in God.  I will forever have a strong emotional attachment to the little town of Assisi due to the personal growth I experienced there.

View of countryside near Assisi, Italy.  This spot was allegedly a favorite location of St. Francis of Assisi.

            Around this same time period, I had begun performing research under the cell biologist Dr. Kate Cooper.  I initially viewed this experience as little more than a resume builder for medical school.  The first couple of months were incredibly difficult because I had to think critically about how to overcome obstacles I encountered instead of just relying on memorized facts to achieve success.  However, I started to gain a great deal of satisfaction from performing scientific research due to the difficulty of the work.  I began to seriously consider continuing conducting research during my career as a physician because of the joy it brought me.

            My research also caused me to think more about the contradictions between science and religion.  The miracles and exciting stories that many religions rely on completely fall apart when looked at from a scientific point of view.  These stories came about during a time when science was in a drastically primitive state compared to today, and people did not have the knowledge to logically explain why they happened.  An easy answer to any question was to place it squarely on the shoulders of God.  Also, the historical evidence behind many of these events is sorely lacking.  Choosing to assign the unknown to God is simply poor science.  I began to realize that there really is no middle ground.  One must choose to follow either the school of thought of religion or science, and the answer was clear for me.  Many people continually look to the complicated nature of life as supporting evidence for a higher being, but I believe everything could have, and likely did, come about through chance and evolution.

Early Science Courses: Get In and Get Out

            It is more than a little bizarre to think that I was actually more interested in my religion courses than my introductory science classes at the beginning of college.  The reason for these feelings is quite simple though.  At this time, I did not enjoy science.  However, I still always knew that I was going to major in one of the hard sciences.  This is because many influential members of my family had majored in the sciences, and this route provided them with financial security.  It is embarrassing to think that my primary motivation for choosing a major was potential earnings, but in many ways, I was just a stereotypical young kid.

            I approached these courses as merely obstacles that stood in the way of my payday.  As a result, I was content with my involvement in these classes as long as I received the grades required to make me a competitive applicant for graduate school.  To accomplish the goal, I relied heavily on my ability to quickly memorize material.  I could rattle off an impressive list of basic biological and chemical principles, but I would have been easily stumped if someone asked “Why do these things occur?”  It is upsetting to know that I obtained very little out of my introductory science courses.

          Interestingly, I did not find any conflict between what was taught in my religion courses and the basic scientific principles I had memorized.  Rather, I felt that God was rooted in every scientific finding and helped explain how the world worked.  Even though I realized that much of what the Catholic Church teaches cannot be supported through experimentation, I still found the existence of God to be an absolute truth.  These feelings started to waiver as I advanced further into the religion and science curriculum at Loras College.

Introductory Breitbach Courses

I entered my freshman year at likely the peak of my Catholicism.  My confirmation had just taken place the previous year, and I was still riding the emotional high of being accepted into a group with similar values.  Unlike most other students at Loras College, I was probably looking forward to my MOI course the most because it was the Breitbach Catholic Thinkers and Leaders course that dealt with important writers from throughout the history of the Catholic Church.  Each day in this class left me emotionally charged and excited for my future as a contributing Catholic in society.  Below is my unabridged response to a prompt from the final for this course.  We were asked to give our impression on a quote from St. Augustine's Confessions.  

What shocks me about revisiting this piece is just how convinced I was of God’s reality.  This may have been because I did not actually think there was any alternative belief system.  The term "atheist" most definitely had a derogatory meaning at this time for me.  While I believe this version of me was naïve and unrealistic, this was a time of great happiness in my life.