Conclusion

Abstract

To conclude this monograph, which deals with the physical mechanisms of the most important bioenergetic processes, let me express some considerations of a more general nature. More than a hundred years ago in two different branches of science, certain new approaches were formulated almost simultaneously. These approaches got over the strong resistance of the inert mass of the established scientific concepts and became the basis for a new scientific Weltanschauung. I am referring to the works of Gibbs, who created statistical thermodynamics, and those of Darwin, who explained directional biological evolution by accidental hereditary changes fixed in accordance with the mechanism of natural selection. In both these approaches accidental elementary events ensure a strict regularity of the resultant macroscopic process. These approaches succeeded in time, though with difficulty, in overcoming the psychological barriers of mechanical determinism and have now become the only possible approaches for an over-whelming majority of scientists.