Biology Reference
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and multiplication, taking roots, doubling the cube, and providing many solutions
of practical questions with great applications to physical reality.
Is it any wonder then that a decade later when presenting a philosophy in
his Discourse on Method to replace the Scholastic norms, he should require
a starting point with the certitude of mathematics, whose assumptions were
intuitive and whose conclusions could be deduced from the assumptions? In his
words he planned to accept 'nothing more than what was presented to my mind
so clearly and distinctly that I could have no occasion to doubt it.' Questions
raised by this 'whole' were to be divided up 'into as many parts as possible'
and by starting this way with 'the most simple and easy to understand, to rise
little by little, or by degrees, to knowledge of the most complex'(Descartes,
1996b). The Discourse on Method described the methods used in his discovery
of analytical geometry and his resolve that 'not having restricted this Method to
any particular matter, I promised myself to apply it as usefully to the difficulties
of other sciences as I had done to those of Algebra'.
The Discourse on Method is often considered the origin of modern science and
modern philosophy. Its clear formulation and subsequent methodological mod-
ifications provide guidance for understanding the roles of a priori assumptions
and empiricism in both science and philosophy. In broader terms, Descartes'
method has developed into the normative method of science. The clear and
distinct assumptions of Descartes' scientific method changed in his lifetime in
response to empirical evidence, and his method moved significantly towards the
modern empirical-hypothetic model of physical science. As a philosopher and
a geometrician, Descartes demanded certainty of knowledge but as historians
have shown 'He settled for empirically confirmed hypothesis when the subject
was nature' (Massa, 1996). The need for a clear and distinct beginning that was
incontrovertible wavered in the face of Descartes' wide-ranging experimental
studies, and the growing explorations by his contemporaries. For modern physi-
cal science, the a priori nature of its starting assumptions were soon replaced by
hypotheses that were continually modified in response to experiment and obser-
vation. Newton's laws were innovative hypotheses formulated in response to and
in explanation of experimental results. As hypotheses they were civilization's
glory but in time, as Einstein showed, they were, like all our understanding,
contingent - not absolute.
Until recently modern physical science was confined to questions about the
non-living world. Hypotheses had replaced a priori certainty in the formulation
of enquiries, and Cartesian a priori certainties had been banished. However,
the recent advances of physical science in understanding the molecules and
processes of living entities have encouraged physical scientists to address the
larger questions of living organisms. That is the very subject of systems biology
and of this topic. Genes, minds, languages, and social structures all are being
explored in molecular terms. As these phenomena come from other realms of
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