Principles of Biology

[J_B_]

An interesting conversation - at least I think so.

What creationists need to do to win against evolution.

Part 999: My Fundamental Theorem of Biology

While the idea presented in the referenced threads obviously doesn't work, the idea of rapidly emerging life is not unfounded. It's something that's been investigated for a while by some respected biologists (and, if it makes a difference, biologists who are not creationists). For example, Stuart A. Kauffman, who taught at the universities of Chicago, Pennsylvania, and Calgary and won a MacArthur Fellowship.

Kauffman's work focused on the emergence of protocells as a complete entity rather than gradually ... so, abiogenesis, though he does speculate about how those protocells would start evolving.

Important to Kauffman's work is a group that included Giuseppe Longo, Mael Montevil, and Ana Soto. Their work wasn't really focused on emergence, but more on a debate that seems to have been going on in biology for about a decade now. There is a concern by some that biology is losing it's scientific moorings because it has shifted from a "theory-centric" approach to a "data-centric" approach. Actually, it seems to me that's a problem in many scientific disciplines - not just biology - since the rise of computers and big data. A proponent of the data-centric approach is Sabina Leonelli. In order to challenge that approach, Longo et. al. developed a "Theory of Organisms" they felt provided the foundational principles for biology that had, heretofore, been lacking.

Kauffman's work is intriguing, though it seems to me to still have a few holes (I'm not a biologist). I find the work of Longo et. al. brilliant and fascinating.

 

[sfs]

I would say that an overarching theory of biology, in the classic phrase, 'fills a much-needed gap in the literature'.

 

[J_B_]

I would say that an overarching theory of biology, in the classic phrase, 'fills a much-needed gap in the literature'.

OK.

 

[sfs]

OK.

To expand slightly on my snark... I think biology is too messy and covers too disparate a set of phenomena for theory to play the same kind of role as it does in a field like physics. To some extent biology already has an overarching theoretical framework: the theory of evolution.

 

[J_B_]

To expand slightly on my snark... I think biology is too messy and covers too disparate a set of phenomena for theory to play the same kind of role as it does in a field like physics. To some extent biology already has an overarching theoretical framework: the theory of evolution.

Because biology has gotten messy, it gets a pass on theory? Hmm. Maybe we should start teaching that next to Scientific Method: If it gets hard, don't worry about it.

Have you read Longo et al, because that's almost exactly their point (points): 1) The approach of physics doesn't work in biology, so something different is needed (rather than nothing at all), 2) biology is too big to lie under a single umbrella (i.e. evolution), therefore a Theory of Organisms is needed alongside evolution rather than being consumed by it.

Though he never says it directly, I think that's part of why Longo's work was so helpful to Kauffman. There is always this emphatic insistence that abiogenesis is NOT evolution. OK, but if evolution IS the theory of biology, then what is abiogenesis? Well, now there's an answer - the Theory of Organisms.

FYI, I used a little snark of my own. If that gets in the way, I can also write snarkless posts.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Because biology has gotten messy, it gets a pass on theory? Hmm. Maybe we should start teaching that next to Scientific Method: If it gets hard, don't worry about it.

Have you read Longo et al, because that's almost exactly their point (points): 1) The approach of physics doesn't work in biology, so something different is needed (rather than nothing at all), 2) biology is too big to lie under a single umbrella (i.e. evolution), therefore a Theory of Organisms is needed alongside evolution rather than being consumed by it.

Though he never says it directly, I think that's part of why Longo's work was so helpful to Kauffman. There is always this emphatic insistence that abiogenesis is NOT evolution. OK, but if evolution IS the theory of biology, then what is abiogenesis? Well, now there's an answer - the Theory of Organisms.

FYI, I used a little snark of my own. If that gets in the way, I can also write snarkless posts.

I suppose, in principle, the whole of biology reduces to chemistry and thence to physics. The problem is that biology is at least a couple of emergent levels 'above' physics, and itself has multiple types of emergence, depending on scale, and levels and scopes of organisation, from cell biology to ecosystems; and each level has its own patterns of activity (rules or laws) and its own conceptual and descriptive language - within evolution theory itself, there is an argument going on for treating certain types of evolutionary processes as emergent behaviours in their own right. A theory of abiogenesis would be a theory of the origin of organisms, of the boundary between organic chemistry and life.

A useful explanatory theory at any emergent level needs to work in terms of the patterns, concepts, and language of that level. No one theory can usefully encompass them all - it would either be too reductionist, e.g. physics, or too abstract, e.g. a general theory of interactions. That's not to say such theories wouldn't be useful in appropriate contexts.

 

[pitabread]

I've long thought that once scientists have a better idea of the full process of abiogenesis, that it would likely be rolled together with the ToE at some point. Given the fuzzy boundary between life and non-life, I equally expect there will be a fuzzy boundary between abiogenesis and evolution.

Pointing out the distinction between abiogenesis and evolution is typically just for the benefit of creationists. Because many creationists attack the ToE by attacking abiogenesis, it takes some pointed reminders that they aren't the same thing.

 

[J_B_]

I suppose, in principle, the whole of biology reduces to chemistry and thence to physics. The problem is that biology is at least a couple of emergent levels 'above' physics, and itself has multiple types of emergence, depending on scale, and levels and scopes of organisation, from cell biology to ecosystems; and each level has its own patterns of activity (rules or laws) and its own conceptual and descriptive language - within evolution theory itself, there is an argument going on for treating certain types of evolutionary processes as emergent behaviours in their own right. A theory of abiogenesis would be a theory of the origin of organisms, of the boundary between organic chemistry and life.

A useful explanatory theory at any emergent level needs to work in terms of the patterns, concepts, and language of that level. No one theory can usefully encompass them all - it would either be too reductionist, e.g. physics, or too abstract, e.g. a general theory of interactions. That's not to say such theories wouldn't be useful in appropriate contexts.

Then you might be interested in Longo. They've published a long list of papers, but much of it seems to be collected here:

Perspectives on Organisms: Biological time, Symmetries and Singularities
Giuseppe Longo

[edit] Or, I should have added, there is a video by Ana Soto I found extremely helpful. It's an hour and 22 minutes long, but you only need to watch the first 30 minutes or so to get what I referenced here. Until I saw her presentation, a lot of this was just word salad to me.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Then you might be interested in Longo. They've published a long list of papers, but much of it seems to be collected here:

Perspectives on Organisms: Biological time, Symmetries and Singularities
Giuseppe Longo

[edit] Or, I should have added, there is a video by Ana Soto I found extremely helpful. It's an hour and 22 minutes long, but you only need to watch the first 30 minutes or so to get what I referenced here. Until I saw her presentation, a lot of this was just word salad to me.

Yes; in order to put the disparate ideas of biology on a firmer theoretical foundation, one has to distil from them theoretical principles that can be used to build testable theoretical explanations.

The biological sciences, including evolutionary theory, are in the throes of identifying and establishing these principles and applying them in new theories that have a unifying explanatory scope or bridge biological ideas across levels or domains.

It seems to me that, ultimately, these theories are, and will be, connected by the other theories they depend and are dependent on, and the theoretical principles they have in common, forming an interdependent theoretical network.

 

[sfs]

Have you read Longo et al, because that's almost exactly their point (points): 1) The approach of physics doesn't work in biology, so something different is needed (rather than nothing at all), 2) biology is too big to lie under a single umbrella (i.e. evolution), therefore a Theory of Organisms is needed alongside evolution rather than being consumed by it.

I have now read it. I was underwhelmed. I thought the consistent treatment of biological theory in a frame derived from physics (symmetries, conservation principles) was pointless, since it only led to the authors repeatedly noting that those principles don't apply in biology. (I honestly have no clue what they meant when referring to evolutionary novelties producing new symmetries.) As far as I can tell, what they end up with is too vague and disconnected from the problems biologists are trying to solve to be of value.

 

[J_B_]

I have now read it. I was underwhelmed. I thought the consistent treatment of biological theory in a frame derived from physics (symmetries, conservation principles) was pointless, since it only led to the authors repeatedly noting that those principles don't apply in biology. (I honestly have no clue what they meant when referring to evolutionary novelties producing new symmetries.) As far as I can tell, what they end up with is too vague and disconnected from the problems biologists are trying to solve to be of value.

OK.