Abstract
This chapter discusses the limits of Monod and Jacob’s molecular biology, called “traditional” and “orthodox”, from both a theoretical and an epistemological point of view.
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Notes
- 1.
Israel (2003) suggests historical examples. It can be said that during the nineteenth century, scientists tried to apply the calculus to society. The problem is that the elements of population move and behave totally different from celestial bodies. For example, during the debate about the opportunity to inoculate the smallpox, D’Alembert proposed a contrary argumentation based on epistemological concepts. He was contrary to the use of probability in that mathematical argumentations, because probability is not trusted, since it has not a proper epistemological status. In general, it is possible to know the objects of a theory scientifically, if they respect criteria defining them as scientific objects. As regards traditional biology, just a fundamental invariant should allow to know life. In this sense, it should be possible a truthful scientific knowledge.
- 2.
In a reductionist framework, “complicated” and “complex” are synonyms.
- 3.
As regards the analysis of this metaphor and its limits, see Longo’s works http://www.di.ens.fr/users/longo/download.html and Bailly and Longo (2006), Longo and Montévil (2014).
- 4.
Jacob (1970, p. 3): “The genetic program, indeed, is made up of a combination of essentially invariant elements. By its very structure, the message of heredity does not allow the slightest concerted intervention from without. […]. The program does not learn from experience”.
- 5.
Jacob (1970, p. 3): “A given message thus represents a particular selection among all the arrangements possible. It is a particular order among all those permitted by the combinative system of symbols. Information measurements the freedom of choice, and thus the improbability of the message”.
- 6.
On the contrary, if it is impossible to know a priori the complete list of possibilities, it is necessary to introduce a different interpretation of the concept of “relation” and to distinguish aleatory (a concept) and probability (a mathematical tool).
- 7.
By the way, in this framework, determinism and reductionism are so strong as the junk DNA is not even considered in the accidental space.
- 8.
The nucleic-acid message does not learn from experience” (Jacob 1970, p. 292). “For the basic strategy of science in the analysis of phenomena is the ferreting out of invariants. Every law of physics, for that matter like every mathematical development, specifies some invariant relation; science’s fundamental statements are expressed as universal conservation principles” (Monod 1989, p. 100). “The universal components - the nucleotides on the one side, the amino acids on the other - are the logical equivalents of an alphabet in which the structure and consequently the specific associative functions of proteins are spelled out. In this alphabet can therefore be written all the diversity of structures and performances the biosphere contains. […]. The fundamental biological invariant is DNA” (Monod 1989, p. 104).
- 9.
Today, scientists know that the similarity among bacteria is 30–40%.
- 10.
“Statistical mechanics made it possible to interpret the average behavior of large populations of molecules. Genetic analysis, however, revealed that biological properties were not the result of statistical molecular events; but that, instead, they were based on the quality of some substances contained in the chromosomes. In contrast to the order of inanimate bodies, the order of living organisms could not be extracted from disorder” (Jacob 1970, pp. 249–250).
- 11.
It is very important to stress that computers, used for simulations, are discrete-state machines.
- 12.
It should be clarified that speaking about non-linearity, the reference is to non-linearity and non-integrable equations.
- 13.
The first one italic is mine, the second one is by Laplace.
- 14.
The work of Poincaré about three body problem shows that it is not always possible to apply the same method. The three body problem is qualitatively different from the two-body. In this sense, it is not about a “complication” of two-body problem.
- 15.
The following chapter shows that the idea of relational space has been resumed from general relativity and that it is possible to apply it to biology, mutatis mutandis.
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Marinucci, A. (2023). Deterministic Biology. In: Theoretical Principles of Relational Biology. Human Perspectives in Health Sciences and Technology, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39374-7_1
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