Month: September 2022

PARTICLES ARE CONTEXTUAL. “Biological reductionists whose motivation is that of reducing biology to physics need to be aware that physics itself also displays the kind of limits I am describing here. Nor are these limits restricted to particle theory.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

GRAVE PROBLEM. “It is relatively easy to show that complete bottom-up reconstructions from the level of molecules to the level of whole organs would require much more computing power than we are ever likely to have available.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

GOBSMACKING FACTOID. “The number of possible interactions between 25 000 genes exceeds the total number of elementary particles in the whole-known Universe, even when we severely restrict the numbers of gene products that can interact with each other.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

SCALE VERSUS LEVEL. “If there is no privileged level of causation, then why should there be a privileged scale?” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

MACRO TO MICRO. “The equations for structure and for the way in which elements move and interact in that structure in biology necessarily depend on the resolution at which it is represented.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

SCALE MATTERS. “These are practical reasons why the equations we use are scale-dependent. The formal theory of scale relativity goes much further since it proposes that it is theoretically necessary that the differential equations should be scale-dependent.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

THE UNIMAGINABLE. “We may need to think the unimaginable in order fully to understand the multi-scale nature of biology. The concept of scale is, after all, deeply connected to our conception of space–time.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

CLUMSY TOOLS. “While I think we can be certain that multi-level causation with feedbacks between all the levels is an important feature of biological organisms, the tools we have to deal with such causation need further development.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

TWO WAY CAUSATION IS REAL. “The question is not whether downward causation of the kind discussed in this article exists, it is rather how best to incorporate it into biological theory and experimentation.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this reflection of Denis Nobel’s provocative thinking that rocks the boat of the central dogma of molecular biology and Neo-Darwinism. It is the nature of Khunian scientific revolutions that knowledge itself continues to evolve, often through a series of upheavals and periods of extreme resistance to new ideas. But in the end, per the adage, we see further because we stand on the shoulders of giants. View in LinkedIn