Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
ishing or whether we find it quite plausible that a small but highly
organized group of atoms be capable of acting in this manner, the
situation is unprecedented: it is unknown anywhere else except in
living matter” (WIL p. 79).
Two ways of producing orderliness ” have to be distinguished
therefore. Whilst physics is subject to a principle of “ order from dis-
order ”, biology is based on a principle of “ order from order ” (WIL
p. 80). Biological molecules escape Brownian motion. They are
guided by this order principle, i.e. the code contained in the chro-
mosomes that is now called genetic information.
This principle is at the centre of molecular biology and leads to
a radical ontological difference between physics and biology. In
physics, order is not an objective property of systems, but rather a
subjective approximation relative to the observer's level. In biology
on the other hand, order is a true property of the organisms, inde-
pendent of the observer (Fig. 5). This conclusion is of the utmost
importance. It may seem a long way from experimental practice but
its consequences directly condition the development of biology. It
directly influences the way problems that are posed in biology
today are dealt with, because it implies that it is subject to insur-
mountable determinism.
3.2
Stereospecific self-assembly
To understand ontogenesis in the context of genetics and molecular
biology, we need to understand how the phenotype is produced from
the genotype. The problem comes up against a particular difficulty,
however. How can a representation of the organism which is coded
in the genome in the form of information be transformed into a real,
three-dimensional, phenotypic structure during embryonic develop-
ment? In other words, how can a virtual organism be materialised
and what is the physical process that allows such a transformation?
Schrödinger attempted to answer this question. In the final
pages of What is Life? he suggested that physical, totally deter-
ministic laws specific to biology must be at work in living beings.
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