Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
5
Self-organisation Does Not Resolve the
Contradiction in Genetic Determinism
S
UMMARY
. There are numerous variants of holism upheld by
philosophers, physicists and biologists. While each has its own
special aspects, together they form a real current of thought,
with the common characteristic of denying the first principle of
science, the latter arising not solely through experimental
methodology but also due to the philosophical revolution which
abolished animism. The idea of matter animated by a final
cause, which was supposed to be inherent to it, was abandoned,
for it to be seen as inert and influenced exclusively by external
causes. Holism, in contrast, reintroduces animism. It presup-
poses matter creating organised wholes corresponding to levels
of increasing complexity (atoms, molecules, cells, organisms etc.).
In this creation, at each level, properties would spontaneously
emerge, irreducible to those of lower levels. This model of a
world stratified into hierarchical levels, constructed from lower
levels, is common to holism and genetic determinism, and the
two theories allege that this expresses a real order immanent in
the world and living organisms. In the second half of the
20th century, the creator principle of holism took the name of
self-organisation and, to account for it, several authors have
tried to suggest models applied to physical or biological phe-
nomena. These models do not resolve the contradiction in
genetic determinism. They are deterministic models with noise
founded on the stereospecificity of the molecules. They them-
selves contain a contradiction which saps at the foundations of
holism. The local properties of the elements of the systems (the
cells, the molecules) are not enough to explain their organisation.
For this reason, self-organisation models are obliged to include the
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