What does this chapter tell us about how science works

What does this chapter tell us about how science works  

Given that this chapter shows how important NPs have been throughout history, the chapter has tried to bridge the sad gulf between the study of science and other disciplines. How many students of science appreciate the importance of NPs How many students of history appreciate the role that a human obsession with NPs has played throughout history Science is about rmderstanding the natural world and surely the role of NPs in evolution and in human affairs must be part of science. 

Ask a scientist to produce a iist of the important bioiogical topics that need to be understood to appreciate human affairs, historicaiiy and currendy, and it is doubtful if many would mention NPs. Yet surely this chapter shows that the human desire to access a few NPs has been extremely important in human affairs. The language some nations speak, the cultural traditions they follow, the religions they practise and even the sports they play can often be traced to that nation s historical links to the NP trade. This massive impact of NPs on human affairs makes it all the more remarkable that very few biologists are aware of the way humans seem in thrall to NPs. The impact of NPs on the lives of every person, every day is seemingly invisible to most members of society, including scientists. This tells us that scientists do not always have powerful abilities to observe, question and analyse. 

Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought. 

One current estimate of NP diversity totals ryo.ooo different structures, yet this huge chemical diversity is generated from only a few biochemical pathways that branch from the metabolism shared by most organisms. About 60% of the known NP diversity comes from one ancient pathway (the isoprenoids or terpenoids), another 30% comes from some other ancient pathways related to each other (the polyphenols, phenylpropanoids or polyketides) and less than 10% of NPs (alkaloids) comes from a more diverse family of pathways. There seems to be a rough correlation between the number of species possessing one pathway and the total diversity of NPs made by that route. Consequently, the minor groups of NPs that comprise less than 1% of the total NP diversity (e.g., the glucosinolates) tend to be restricted to a small number of species. 

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