Borges Dilemma, Fundamental Laws, and Systems Biology
نویسنده
چکیده
A well-known folk-law in biology is that there is no general law in biology because of exceptions. In her recent elegant essay E.F. Keller gave a particular nice presentation on the exceptions to rules or laws in biology [1]. Her example of scaling laws was especially illuminating. Nevertheless, for this cherished folk-law the present author is wondering about its exceptions, too. Several examples immediately jump into his minds. One, of course, would be the folk-law itself: It had no exception in biology. This would be a bit disappointing because it would only permit us to work as what the cartographers did in J.L. Borges’ fable [2]. Though eventually a map as big and as detail as the empire itself might be obtained, one would then ask where is the understanding within such an immense object? More disappointedly, such folk-law is really not biological. It has been used by some philosophers to argue against the unity of science [3].
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