Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
This resemblance between genetic information and the formal
cause has already been pointed out by many authors, biologists or
philosophers, including emphatically by the founder of molecular
biology, Delbrück himself (Delbrück, 1971; Mauron, 2002; Mayr,
1982; Vinci and Robert, 2005), so indeed this is nothing really new.
However, this resemblance is generally accepted as being positive.
It is interpreted either as a mark of the genius of Aristotle, who
might be considered the forerunner of molecular biology, or as a
curiosity which could certainly be suitable for historical analysis,
but is of no consequence for concrete biological research. We, on the
contrary, think it is an important obstacle which is limiting the
development of research right up to its experimental aspects.
We have seen that the concepts of information and stereospecificity,
which form the core of genetic determinism, lead to a contradiction
between this theory and experimental research data. In reality, this
contradiction goes much further back. Since it has its roots in
the underlying metabiology of classical genetics, it was already
present in the founding works of this discipline, well before molec-
ular biology arrived on the scene.
7.3
The pangenetic theory
Despite the enormous accumulation of experimental observations
and data which have enriched our knowledge of the living world
since Antiquity, biological thought has not made much progress but
has remained under the influence of the same ways of thinking.
Indeed, it is striking to see that both the Hippocratic and
Aristotelian conceptions persisted until the 18th and 19th centuries
as so-called pangenetic and genetic theories, and how, in the same
way that Aristotle refuted Hippocrates to bring his theory to the
fore, the birth of genetics coincided with the pangenetic theory
being refuted. This theory circulated in different forms, with Buffon
and Maupertuis each producing their own version. For each of these
authors their principle was analogous to that of Hippocrates' the-
ory, each part of the body emitting particles or supernumerary mol-
ecules which migrate to the reproductive organs to form the seminal
