Josephine*

I fully understand *and* agree

made absolutely *no* sense to me

Edit: Oh, and in all seriousness, Jospehine (#3), I fully understand agree with what you mean. Biochemistry made absolutely so sense to me until I realized, “Oh, these enzymes don’t *want* to find lactose and break it apart, they just do it based on their shape! That transcriptase doesn’t *know* where to find strands of DNA to copy, it just bumps into them!”

Edit2: Oh, to answer your actual question, I think it’s easier to explain in casual terms that “Protein A *wants* Result X,” and “Virus B *attacks* Cell Y.” If the audience is really thinking about it, and doesn’t understand where the intent comes from, the “accidental” explanation would come in handy. The intent-laden terms can be more correctly interpreted from then on.

I raise this point because there is such anthropomorphising in biological explanations; it makes one wonder about intent, such as in “proteins want” etc. In my first year of university it confused me to no end. How could inanimate molecules have intent? What was the -real- underlying reason for their “behaviour”? -Then- I understood the randomness of it all, and it made so much sense.

I don’t know: do other people feel the same way? I honestly have no idea, and that’s why I ask. What is easiest to understand; clams cheating with intent, or genetic injections being nothing but fortunate accidents?

It’s almost as if those spider goats used to produce silk protein had somehow evolved naturally by eating dead spiders one day when they were starving and absorbing their DNA.