Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
(Popper, 1992), because it was well recognized that there were many unknown
components and regulatory mechanisms in the cell that could affect the pathway
that was under investigation. For similar reasons verifications were limited in
value. What often resulted was an escape of biochemistry and molecular biology
to well defined
in vitro
systems, where at least the mechanisms of the proposed
pathway or molecules could be established, even though the relevance for their
operation
in vivo
became unclear.
2. LIMITATIONS TO THE SCIENTIFIC STATUS OF
BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
Notwithstanding their success concerning the understanding of single types of
macromolecules, classical biochemistry and molecular biology face limitations
when compared to the science aimed at by the philosophers of classical physics.
These limitations are
(1) Inaccuracy: no quantitative, i.e. accurate, testing of hypotheses
(2) Inability to deal with emergent properties: because of lack of quantization
it is impossible to test a number of qualitative hypotheses that are highly
important for the emergent properties in living systems
(3) Irreducibility: biochemistry and molecular biology theories cannot be
reduced to physical chemical theories
(4) Impotency, i.e. inability to address Life itself and lack of connection to
organismal Biology
(5) Undefinedness: not all factors that play important roles are known and
consequently hypotheses cannot be tested
(6) Inaccessibility to experimentation: the systems under study cannot be exper-
imented on through a sufficient number of degrees of freedom
(7) Lack of analyzability
We now discuss these limitations, one at a time.
2.1.
Inaccuracy
The first limitation is that the cartoon-type hypotheses were not quantitative and
thereby unfit for the strictest possible quantitative testing, a procedure desired
by the philosophy of physics (Carnap, 1966). Being quantitative enables tests to
be more stringent (Laughlin, 2005). If the temperature of a closed vessel with
an ideal gas rises by 10% then the qualitative test of the law of Boyle asks if the
pressure goes up, whilst the quantitative test asks whether the pressure goes up
by precisely 10%. Clearly, the qualitative test has a 50% chance of being passed
