Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
organisation of one level above another: molecules, cells, tissues,
organs, organisms and ecosystems. Corresponding to this structural
hierarchy is said to be a hierarchy of controls leading to very com-
plicated networks of multiple interactions between components,
that cannot be described by simple laws. This hierarchical organi-
sation seems obvious but raises the same question as that concern-
ing species: Is it a first principle? Is it ontologically real? As
concerns genetics and the theories of self-organisation the answer is
positive: it would seem to be a structure helping constitute the liv-
ing being. Each level seems to have properties determining how
organisms function. Due to this ontological similarity, genetics and self-
organisation are confronted with the same pitfalls. Self-organisation,
which sets itself up as an alternative, is no more appropriate than
genetics, and leads to the same contradictions.
Hierarchical organisation is not, on the other hand, a first prin-
ciple for cellular Darwinism. We find it difficult to accept this idea
because there is a particular epistemological obstacle to biology.
This lies not in any intrinsic complexity of living beings but
in the extreme difficulty we have in going beyond essentialism
in our relationship with them. We always want to endow them
with characteristics which differentiate them from the rest of
nature. These characteristics are intrinsic, either those coded in
the genetic information, or emerging and creative characteristics
postulated by self-organisation.
We can understand this difficulty better using an analogy.
Everyone knows the allegory of Plato's cave. Here, the situation is
different. The man is not a prisoner in a cave but is lost in the
Amazonian forest. He has no idea of the geoclimatic context of
where he is and can never see the Amazon, the existence of which
is unknown to him. Before his eyes he has this extraordinary accu-
mulation of vegetation comprised of all sorts of plants, large and
small, which are intertwined in every direction. This forest, with its
innumerable details, appears to him to be extraordinarily complex
and he thinks that the explanation for it must be similarly complex:
he seeks a meaning and reason for each detail. Why, for example, is
this particular plant exactly in this specific place and why are its
