Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
there is nothing to evolve. This does not mean that individual organisms must be
totally self-sufficient. Organisms can evolve to rely on features of the environ-
ment that are regularly present to them. But they need to create and maintain all
the mechanisms upon which they rely in order to use these resources. Second,
each addition to the basic system involves a cost in that the system must generate
and repair these mechanisms itself. Evolution is not just a matter of introducing
and selecting new genes, but requires a system that builds and maintains new
traits (i.e., new mechanisms).
I have been emphasizing the value of focusing on organization as it sub-
serves autonomy in understanding biological mechanisms. In concluding, I must
acknowledge that in practice a great deal of significant biological research has
proceeded without considering how the mechanisms investigated subserve the
autonomy of a living system. From this research we have acquired substantial
understanding of the mechanisms involved in living systems. This is possible
because a researcher can focus on a mechanism as operating in a specified way
without considering it as subserving the autonomy of the organism. What, then,
is the value of emphasizing autonomy and the demands it imposes on organ-
isms? This can be answered in two ways. First, despite its many successes, when
mechanistic science fails to attend to organization it often reaches a point of
identifying the parts but not understanding how they succeed in producing the
phenomena exhibited in living organisms. Such frustration is part of the expla-
nation of the current appeal of developing a systems approach to biology where
tools for mathematically modeling systems complement those for identifying
components. Second, discovery of the mechanisms actually operative in nature is
often fostered by understanding the constraints under which they work. Lacking
constraints, there are often too many possibilities and it is difficult to determine
which possibility is the actual one being sought. Maintaining autonomous func-
tioning is a critical constraint on any biological mechanism, and considering the
requirements autonomy imposes provides constraint for investigators trying to
figure out the mechanisms at work.
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Bechtel W.
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Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science: 15, 309-356, 1984.
Bechtel W.
Discovering cell mechanisms: The creation of modern cell biology
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University Press, Cambridge, 2006.
Bechtel W & Abrahamsen A.
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