Dr. Windsor, my Anatomy and Physiology professor, emphasized the importance of pairing the “how” with the “why,” a thought I’ve carried with me since Fundamentals of Biology in '23. This is where my love for science began, topic by topic: H2O (if found on another planet can indicate signs of life, its unique properties), Carbon (organic chemistry), macromolecules (my favorite).

I'll never forget our short lecture on sickle cell and tearing up in class because I couldn't believe one change, one mere mutation in an entire protein chain sequence alters the hemoglobin structure and means a totally different life for an individual. I wondered if I was the only one awake that morning.

Biology quietly introduces the same pairing as A&P: mechanism and meaning. I see what happens at the cellular or molecular level, and questions can't help but come up: Why this solution and not another? Why is life so redundantly protected in some places and so fragile in others? Why does order keep emerging from chaos? Long before A&P, biology plants the seed that life isn’t random motion—it’s organized persistence. Cells adapt, systems compensate, organisms prioritize survival, reproduction, balance. Even at the smallest scale, there’s intention-like behavior without intention itself. Then A&P comes along and scales it up. Suddenly, the abstractions have faces, pain, breath, and mortality. The “why” gets heavier. It’s no longer just how does a membrane work, but why does its failure change who someone can be in the world.

One of the first things I learned in Fundamentals lab are the three tenets of science: physical evidence, repeatability, and falsifiability. But American neurosurgeon and writer Paul Kalanithi said:

“Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving, suffering, virtue.”