Biomolecules, Networks and Bioenergetics: System Approach to Biology

Abstract

Biology is often considered the ugly duckling of science. Compared with mathematical proofs, physical models and the molecular structures of chemistry, biology has often seemed unquantifiable and unpredictable. Despite this, from its outset and over the centuries, biology has played an irrefutable role for its implications in the safeguarding of human health. Moreover, biology contributes to the enrichment of our culture thanks to the development of the theory of evolution, and the efforts in regard to the deepest and most difficult question faced by humanity: the origin of life. With the passing of time, the different scientific disciplines have gained advantage from mutual interactions, which have, in the meantime, earned biology a hegemonic position from the cultural and applicative perspectives, by spearheading issues and technologies that are having a significant impact on the future of human society. Regrettably, this might be in a dystopic way, as was anticipated in the already-mentioned novel by Aldous Huxley, published in 1932, Brave New World, in which a vision of an unequal, technologically advanced future is offered, in which humans are genetically bred and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order.