Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Like genetic determinism, self-organisation presupposes that
order is real, and the emergence of levels of organisation of the world
expresses a principle of order immanent in matter. It is therefore
incapable of taking into account the non-specificity of biological mol-
ecules which demonstrate the opposite. When it tries to explain real
phenomena, its application models contain environmental con-
straints, without their being explicitly conceptualised. Certainly, they
may be relevant in as far as they describe an experimental phenom-
enon, as in the case of Bénard's instability model or Weiss' embryo-
genesis model, but they contradict the very idea of self-organisation
which gave rise to them because in reality they are models of hetero-
organisation. Not only do theories of self-organisation not resolve the
contradiction in genetic determinism but analysis of them demon-
strates the need to integrate environmental constraints to explain
organisation of a system in a theoretical context which goes beyond
both genetic determinism and holism.
