Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
This is therefore a closed system of explanation, and in this sense,
it is perfect and cannot be faulted. On the other hand, if the stone
is inert in itself, what makes it move must be analysed. We are then
obliged to hypothesise about the causes (the forces) which act on
the stone, and check whether those hypotheses are right using an
experimental setup based on a prediction which goes beyond the
simple observation of the stone falling. However, as the experimen-
tal setup can always be improved by new predictions and technical
developments, scientific explanation is never final. It can always
undergo new tests and be faulted, necessitating new hypotheses and
new experiments. Unlike the essentialist explanation therefore, it is
imperfect and open to its own transformation. It is this imperfec-
tion that enables it to progress.
In the 20th century, theories of physics profoundly changed. The
theories of relativity and quantum physics broke with the deter-
ministic mechanism of the 17th century, but these developments did
not mean abandoning the principle of the objectivity of nature and
returning to animism. Physics did not discover a new hidden order
immanent in the world. On the contrary, as Schrödinger so well
explained it, order, for statistical physics, is a subjective approxi-
mation (see chapter 3), while for quantum physics, it is a proba-
bilistic theory which has made a fundamental principle of
indeterminism. For contemporary science, what is snugly concealed
in the depths of nature is not a new finality, a hidden order or some
kind of determination, but randomness and indetermination. The
anti-essentialism of classic science has been made even more radi-
cal, from this point of view.
In biology, the principle of the objectivity of nature led Bernard
to elaborate the concept of an internal environment. Indeed, as he
explained in
An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine
(1865), its prime aim is not, as is often believed, to define the indi-
vidual in his autonomy in relation to the external environment, but
to allow the development of experimental physiology founded on
principles analogous to those of physics and chemistry. The inter-
nal environment of a living organism consists of all the conditions
