Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
1.
INTRODUCTION
These are exciting times for biology, on multiple fronts. A number of disciplines
intersect and are enlightened by the explosive growth of new knowledge in
detail and at the system level about genetic and biochemical interactions. New
perspectives on the evolution, phylogeny, development, and organization of
complex adaptive systems emerge as we learn more about these interacting
systems in development at the biochemical, cellular, and multicellular levels
affecting differentiation and compartmentalization. The new systems biology
(NSB) is riding an expanding wave as we found and rename departments in
its name.
We also seem to be reverting spontaneously to talk that was more common in
the heyday of 'systems theory' and cybernetics in biology, from the late 1950s
to the early 1970s. This reversion is a product of the kinds of knowledge we are
gaining. It was more schematic and promissory then; now, while still schematic
in many places, it is increasingly richly empirically based and detailed. The
timeliness of much of this history is explored elsewhere in this volume by Evelyn
Fox Keller.
2
And increasing use of the cybernetic vocabulary comes from both
macro- and microdirections: Thus Wallace Arthur (1997) and Eric Davidson
(2001) both make rich use of such language and 'wiring diagrams' of interactions
between and among genes and their products. Arthur, a self-retooled population
biologist, became intrigued by the rich complexities of development. His interest
is morphological but reaches down to detailed gene-control interactions relevant
to morphological expression.
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Davidson, a pioneer in the study of gene control
from the late 1960s and fairly speaking, a new systems biologist before there
was a NSB, has a focus that is more 'bottom-up', analyzing, and articulating
gene-control networks and cascades to extrapolate to an overall, developmental
architecture (Davidson & Erwin, 2006). The return to cybernetic language is not
surprising. In the last decade, we have analyzed 'genetic wiring diagrams' of
increasing complexity and scope (Davidson, 2006).
2
Evelyn and I are both historically well placed to remember it though as a biophysicist working on development
she was a participant, while I looked on enviously, by then as a philosopher. My connections came through
Frank Rosenblatt's broad ranging course in the Fall of 1964 (titled 'Brain Models and mechanisms', but it
was really on adaptive systems more generally and many of the readings showed the influence of cybernetics
and systems theory). Of all that I read, probably Kacser (1957) came closer to representing the spirit of the
NSB. It was not well known, but in many ways the spirit of the NSB was paradigmatically anticipated.
3
Another example with another approach is provided by Stuart Newman, a theoretical chemist by training,
and an evolutionary morphologist Gerd Müller. They undertake systematic exploration of morphological
possibilities for cellular constructions and their connections with the underlying chemistry (Newman and
Müller 2000; Müller and Newman 2003). Their approach seeks generic constraints on possible modes for
assembly of cells into larger morphological structures. In the generality it seeks, it is a methodology more
reminiscent of bottom-up approached from physics, but practiced on top-down objects and phenomena.
