About
I'm Martin Ruvalcaba, a PhD candidate in molecular biology at the University of California, Los Angeles. My research focuses on how viruses interact with the innate immune system, particularly the Zinc Finger Antiviral Protein (ZAP). Over the years, I've seen how often academics, myself included at times, offer confident opinions far outside their fields. The result isn't greater understanding, but an illusion of it.
In many corners of academia, the sciences and the humanities have been pushed apart, as though they have nothing to say to one another. Scientists dismiss philosophy as speculation; humanists dismiss science as reductionism. What's lost is nuance: the ability to see complexity without flattening it, and to ask better questions rather than cling to brittle certainties.
Subtle Matters is my response. It's a place to write in full sentences, to think across disciplines, and to treat both science and the humanities as necessary for understanding the world. These essays and commentaries aim to restore dialogue between ways of knowing and to hold space for reflection that our present culture too quickly discards.
What you'll find
- Commentaries: short reflections on current debates that open a line of inquiry.
- Essays: longer explorations that trace ideas across history, culture, and philosophy.
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