Life in the Interstices: Systems Biology and Process Thought

نویسنده

  • Joseph E. Earley
چکیده

Insights gained by contemporary biology should interest philosophers, whether or not they agree with E. O. Wilson's statement (2006, 106): [Biology] has become foremost [among the sciences] in relevance to the central questions of philosophy, aiming to explain the nature of mind and reality and the meaning of life. Clearly, philosophy of science finds significance in current biology. Vigorous discussions of levels of selection, mechanistic explanation, and other technical topics are now in progress. However, Wilson suggests (correctly, in my view) that philosophers other than philosophers of science (e.g., metaphysicians) also should take insights gained in recent biological research into account. In particular, investigation of how interactions between components of biological entities lead to the behaviors and properties of those entities ─ the currently active field of " systems biology " (Klipp 2005) ─ will repay philosophical attention. As eminent bioinorganic chemist R. J. P. Williams (2005) puts it: Studies of biological sciences can be approached in two ways: reductively, as in molecular biology, or holistically, as in systems biology. …The future lies with the second [way] as the first is nearing completion. The research program that grew into contemporary systems biology developed in the decades just before the middle of the 20 th century. The main features of the quantum interpretation of microphysics and Whitehead's " philosophy of organism " also matured in the same period. C. H. Waddington (1959), a pioneer of systems biology, recognized that

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تاریخ انتشار 2007