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control flux but to maintain metabolite homeostasis. Hence these results jumped
two levels, relating the constitutive biomolecules to homeostasis and control at
both the metabolic and physiological levels. These results were connected to
the level of systems biology by explaining the metabolic nature of Non Insulin-
Dependent Diabetes (NIDD), a disease with both genetic and life style contribu-
tions. MRS experiments comparing rates of glycogen synthesis in NIDD patients
with healthy controls showed the genetic deficit to lie in a reduced recruit-
ment of glucose transporters to the muscle plasma membrane. Contributions
of exercise and obesity upon this recruitment and its mechanism are all being
fruitfully studied. Effects of genetics, environment, and the individual's contin-
gent history upon the flux of these pathways are reflected in the biochemical
measurements.
Philosophically, these studies are driven by a search for mechanism, where
the systemic function is defined in chemical or physical terms. In alternative
philosophies, the systemic function is defined by 'clear and distinct' intuitions,
such as the explanatory nature of concepts like mind, gene, or structure-functions
connections, rather than by mechanisms built upon scientific hypotheses and
data. Methods that look for physical correlates of function beg the question of
mechanism, rather than answering it. Given the progress made and promised
by the studies presented, I see no need to abandon the normal methods and
philosophies of physical science.
1.
INTRODUCTION
Philosophy had always claimed the right to monitor and judge other fields but
in the seventeenth century science declared its freedom from outside values.
Descartes conspicuously proclaimed his independence of the existing norms,
saying (Descartes, 1996a) of the sciences of his day that 'inasmuch as they derive
their principles from Philosophy, I judged that one could have built nothing solid
on foundations so far from firm', thereby rejecting a millennium of scholasticism.
We need not follow his direction, in no small part this essay intends to reject
crucial features of his brilliant, inconsistent philosophy, but the very freedom
that scientists have to do so, to hold meetings on the search for a proper Philos-
ophy, derives from his skepticism. He was free, in Holland, to reject the norms,
and to create a philosophy built on his scientific studies. And we also are able,
once we move away from the prevailing norm with its great worldly rewards, to
develop a philosophy that suits our scientific activity. We are in fact even freer
because four centuries of scientific progress has made scientists masters of their
domain. In contrast to Descartes' time, when Scholastic philosophy made the
rules, today traditional philosophy has relinquished its right to be prescriptive,
and has yielded to natural science the right to set standards for the methods
