Author Jacques Monod was a co-winner of the 1965 Nobel prize for describing the replication mechanism of genetic material and how cells synthesize protein. The thoughts in this book, based on a series of lectures the author gave in 1969, strikes the reader as the molecular biologist's "narrow version" of Edmond O. Wilson's book Consilience. Where Wilson sought unifying ideas across all sciences, Monod discusses unifying ideas across each of the various levels of biology, starting at the genetic level (with protein formation and replication), moving to the microscopic level (interactions inside the cell) and then to the macroscopic level (the structure and order of biological beings).
Along the way, the reader gets a brief tour of the history of biological science, as the author reviews various biological theories of life over the last few centuries. We learn the "vitalism" theories of Henri Bergson, Hans Driesch and others; the "animism" theories of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, which assumed purpose in the biological world; and we even learn about the dialectical materialism of Engels, which somehow wormed its way into biology, economics and sociology as a sort of "theory of everything."
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The author relishes the various paradoxes of microbiology. See for example how natural selection, if it really does explain all the diversity of the biosphere[1], requires both mutability and extreme stability. If an organism (more accurately, the genetic information programming that organism) is too genetically mutable, the life form becomes genetically unstable and cannot survive. But if it isn't mutable at all, it cannot evolve. Thus the author's title: we have "Chance" in the form of rare mutations, propagated via the "Necessity" of a highly stable and consistent underlying system of protein formation, transcription and replication.
A second paradox the author explores is the paradox of apparent purpose. If evolution comes from rare random mutations, how is it that the greater system appears directed, or "purposive" as the author puts it? And if it's really all just random, what's the fucking point of it all? It is disturbingly easy to take from modern neo-Darwinism a sort of inescapable nihilism: everything is random, therefore no teleology or purposiveness to anything. If we really leap on this train and join the Richard Dawkins types, we end up taking things much further--to a nihilistic, arrogant certainty that there's no God. I don't know the answer to these questions, but even I can see where that train goes: to perdition.
On the other hand we can also see a sort of fundamental oneness that exists among all life: we're all built on the same cellular structures, built on the same proteins and amino acids, all structured with a fascinating, paradoxical randomness and spontaneous order. Knowing this, and knowing how miraculous it is, I don't see how anyone could be a nihilist.
Footnote:
[1] I encourage readers curious about various modern controversies over evolution's drivers to explore Vox Day's mathematical challenge to natural selection, which argues that evolution cannot possibly be explained solely by natural selection: there isn't anywhere near enough time to fix the requisite number of mutations.
[Readers, as always, what follows are my notes and reactions to the book--they are here to help me order my thinking and better remember what I read. Feel free to stop reading right here and return to your lives!]
Notes:
Note these epigraphs at the beginning of the book:
"Everything existing in the universe is the fruit of chance and of necessity." Democritus
And then two paragraphs here from the myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, essentially imagining Sisyphus happy in his labors, that all is well, and that "this universe without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile."
Preface
xiff On biology being a tiny but special part of science; the study of living beings will unlikely uncover general laws applicable outside the biosphere, however, it gets to the heart of problems that must be resolved before human nature can be understood; also comments here on the genetic code, molecular biology and a general theory of living systems that must be explored before secret of life can be understood at all. The author talks about the purpose of this book, which is not meant to be a thorough survey of biology but rather to point out key concepts in biology and connect them to other areas of thought.
xiii Interesting distinction the author makes here between the ideas suggested by science and science itself: "I must claim full responsibility as well for the ethical and sometimes political ideas I have expressed and preferred not to avoid, perilous though they are and however naive or overambitious they may appear."
Chapter 1: Of Strange Objects
3ff On the difference between the natural and the artificial; on how nature is objective rather than "projective" like a tool or something that is molded by physical forces like rocks in a river; how natural objects never have geometrically simple or straightforward structures like flat surfaces. rectilinear edges, right angles or exact symmetries, whereas artifacts ordinarily show such features. The author presents a thought experiment: let's say we're designing a machine to recognize the difference between an artifact and something natural on, say, Venus or Mars; such a machine tested on Earth would find quartz crystals for example to be artificial objects--an error; see also for example another type of "object": a hive built by wild bees; the hive is artificial but it's also "created" in an automatic way, not a projective way; in fact the bees themselves might look artificial to a Martian! They're symmetrical, extremely complex, identical, etc.
8ff Carrying the thought experiment a little further: compare horses running in a field and automobiles moving on a highway. Or likewise compare the eye of a vertebrate with a camera and note the profound similarities: a lens, diaphragm, shutter, light sensitive pigments, both with the same purpose of picking up an image. "Every artifact is a product made by a living being which through it expresses, in a particularly conspicuous manner, one of the fundamental characteristics common to all living beings without exception: that of being objects endowed with a purpose or project, which at the same time they exhibit in their structure and carry out through their performances." The author argues that living beings are distinct from all other structures through the characteristic property of teleonomy, or an apparent purposefulness driven by evolutionary adaptation or natural selection rather than conscious design.
10ff On living beings being self-constructing machines driven by morphogenetic interactions within the object itself, as opposed to an artifact--like a bee's nest--which comes from the application of materials external to the object itself. Again the author cites crystals as an exception: "crystals, whose characteristic geometry reflects microscopic interactions within the crystal itself." This gets one to think that perhaps there's a similar mechanism in biological beings, where there are microscopic interactions responsible for the being's morphology; the author says this will be developed in later chapters.
12ff The author continues his thought experiment with his hypothetical programmer/machine trying to differentiate between living beings and artifacts: it should be able to tell that the living beings and their structures "represent a considerable quantity of information whose source has still to be identified" as "information presupposes a source." But the source of a information expressed in the structure of a living being is always another structurally identical object, in other words these living beings have the ability to reproduce and transmit information corresponding to their own structure. The term he uses here is invariant reproduction or invariance.
13ff On defining teleonomy, autonomous morphogenesis, and reproductive invariance:
Reproductive invariance is transmitting information from one generation to the next with the preservation of a specific structural standard.
Teleonomy is apparent purposefulness, in this case the preservation and multiplication of the species. He uses the term teleonomic information to describe the quantity of information that must be transmitted for these structures to be realized and the performances their project (reproduction or multiplication) to be accomplished.
15 The author gives specific examples of teleonomic elements like the importance of play in higher mammals in their young, which drives psychic development and social integration; thus play has teleonomic value as a condition for the expansion of the species.
17 Examples here of objects capable of invariant reproduction but without a teleonomic apparatus: like a crystalline structure. Note the complexity level of a crystal is much lower than that of living organisms; note that proteins are responsible for almost all teleonomic structures; genetic invariance on the other hand is linked exclusively to nucleic acids. "Finally, as will be seen in the next chapter, this distinction is assumed, explicitly or otherwise, in all the theories, all the ideological constructions (religious, scientific, or philosophical) pertaining to the biosphere and to its relationship to the rest of the universe."
18ff On the paradox of invariance, and how it seems to conflict with the second law of thermodynamics/entropy; but what we are considering here is an energetically isolated system, see for example a formation of a crystal where you "pay" for it with a transfer of thermal energy into the system to create order, thus this is a local heightening of order; see another example of taking a sugar solution and culturing e. coli in it: eventually you'll get billions of bacteria but a large percent of the sugar will have been consumed and oxidized, and so there will be likewise a "thermodynamic balance sheet" just like with formation of a crystal, with no violation of a second law.
20ff On teleonomy and the principle of objectivity: the collection of bacteria is adapted to its purpose, which is to preserve and reproduce a structural norm; it does so not by departing from physical laws but by exploiting them in its own idiosyncratic way.
21 "The cornerstone of the scientific method is the postulate that nature is objective. In other words, the systematic denial that "true" knowledge can be got at by interpreting phenomena in terms of final causes--that is today, of "purpose." The author cites Galileo and Descartes for the principles of inertia and the epistemology of modern science, which essentially abolished Aristotelian physics and cosmology
21-2 At the same time, however, we must recognize the teleonomic character of living organisms: they act projectively to realize and pursue a purpose. "Here therefore, at least in appearance, lies a profound epistemological contradiction. In fact the central problem of biology lies with this very contradiction, which, if it is only apparent, must be resolved; or else proven to be utterly insoluble, if that should turn out indeed to be the case."
Chapter 2: Vitalisms and Animisms
23ff The author ranks teleonomy as a secondary property deriving from invariance [Chapter 6 will explain how "invariance necessarily precedes teleonomy"]; on finding an answer for "the problem of strangeness of living beings."
25ff On "vitalist" theories of teleonomic principles, which imply a radical distinction between living beings and the inanimate world; versus "animist" theories: "These theories see in living beings the most highly elaborated, most perfect products of a universally oriented evolution. which has culminated in mankind." He argues that the animist category of theories/interpretations--whether they admit it or not--imply the renunciation of objectivity.
26 First on the "metaphysical vitalism" of Henri Bergson: on Bergson as poetic with an engaging style, that his philosophy has fallen into complete discredit today; on the idea of life having a "current" or an élan, distinct from inanimate matter, that forces it into organized form. [Interesting blurb here where the Monod writes "in my youth no one stood a chance of passing his baccalaureate examination unless he had read {Bergson's book] Creative Evolution." Once again, we see how science progresses one funeral at a time, and you have to be conversant in the fashion of the time just to survive to practice "science" in the first place. And yet of course everybody seems to forget the implication of this, which is that most of "science" we believe today is merely "fashion"--and will be discredited once enough funerals happen, once enough of the scientists believing what's in fashion die off.]
27ff Next on scientific vitalism: the position held by many distinguished scholars, including Driesh, Elsässer and Polanyi. The author summarizes Elsässer's position here: the strange properties of invariance and teleonomy are not at odds with physics but physical forces and chemical interactions do not fully account for them; thus there is some additional physical principle involved. Also on the idea of embryonic development: the author calls it "one of the most miraculous phenomena in the whole of biology," as it continues to "elude genetic and biochemical analysis." The vitalists believe that physical laws are insufficient to explain embryogenesis; however, the author also cites recent development in our understanding of molecular control mechanisms that regulate cellular growth and activity. Basically vitalism requires that there remain certain paradoxes or mysteries, but as molecular biology progresses the author argues that the remaining "mysteries" will narrow, until we are down to the mystery of consciousness itself.
29ff On animism: the author finds animist conceptions a great deal more interesting than vitalist ideas. Basically this means looking around and wondering about all the mysterious objects and beings in their world and assuming that they must be for a purpose: this resolves the world's strangeness. Animist belief, "consists essentially in a projection into inanimate nature of man's awareness of the intensely teleonomic functioning of his own central nervous system." He actually cautions/corrects the reader here, saying that this is essentially a childlike worldview; and also that modern culture thinks this way: see for example Liebniz or Hegel, or the idea of "scientific progressism" of Teilhard de Chardin: that there is no "inert" matter, that evolution operates throughout the entire universe from particles to galaxies and that there's no essential distinction between matter and life, and that "the biosphere and man are the latest products of this ascent."
32 Comments on Teilhard's "poetic grandeur" but also his "intellectual spinelessness." Also on the idea that the scientific progressism does not originate with Teilhard, in fact it even shows up in the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels; the idea that known as well as unknown and unknowable forces operate throughout the universe, creating variety, coherence, specialization and order; and thanks to this, "man at last finds his eminent and necessary place in the universe, along with certainty of the progress which is forever pledge to him." The author calls this "animist projection": giving a purpose or restoring a purpose to fathomless nature, making it decipherable and intelligible, by assuming it has an evolutive or ascending force. The author will later call this the "perfect mirror" view of reality, that reality is a mirror of human thought, that it's purposive, that it has a direction, that it's on a journey to betterment and perfection. He argues this view totally abandons the postulate of objectivity.
33ff Mention here of Marx and Engels: that they too resorted to animist projection, thus this idea reached far beyond the circle of biology and the sciences. The author even paints Hegel's ideas of the laws of the dialectic as a form of evolution in a dialectical order, which is interesting; he also argues that this abandons objectivity.
34ff The author goes through the essential tenets of dialectical materialism, drawing from Engels' book The Dialectics of Nature: that the dialectic is constructive, meaning the evolution of the universe is likewise constructive and "ascendant"; that its highest expression is human society, consciousness and thought, that these things are all "necessary" products of evolution.
35 [Interesting meta-ideas buried here in this quote maybe worth thinking about]: "To be sure, one may contest this reconstruction and deny that it reflects Marx and Engels' authentic thought. But that is really only secondary. The influence of an ideology depends on the meaning it maintains in the minds of its adepts, and which is spread by later commentators. Countless texts show that the foregoing summary is legitimate, as representing at least the Vulgate of dialectical materialism." Monod then goes on to cite J.B.S. Haldane ("an outstanding modern biologist") and his preface to Engels' book The Dialectics of Nature, which cites Marxists studying science among human activities and productive methods, and that they thought their ideas about general laws of change in society and human thought could also be applied to problems of pure science as well, not just social relations of science. [A few thoughts: 1) Is it really fair to assign a viewpoint to the (self-limited) originators of an idea simply because later "adepts" go crazy and think it applies to everything? 2) Remember how framing things in terms of ideology hypocognizes people terribly and makes them really dumb, thus maybe this is how you can extrapolate things way beyond their reach: you think it's smarter than it is! 3) It's also interesting that two pages later the author notes that "certain of Marx's own writings could be cited in opposition to this concept." We might say that we can see in Marx whatever we need to see, or more cynically, whatever the "Revolution" needs to see...]
37ff Back to the argument here: on the scientific upheaval of the Enlightenment, where science played a purposeful role in man's mastery over nature, thus it is understandable that these dialectical materialists assumed the external world "mirrored" human thought. But then the author says the 20th century produced a second age of science based once again on objectivity; the author says only this objectivity could give rise to quantum theory and relativity, for example. Also citing advances in neurology and experimental psychology that indicate that information the central nervous system furnishes to consciousness is heavily codified and transposed, thus making "perfect mirror" idea increasingly less defensible. On the 20th century bringing a form of objectivity to these previous viewpoints. The author argues that the "dialectical materialism/perfect mirror" viewpoint tried to make everything into fundamental laws of movement, laws of evolution, and worse, attempted to render these general laws somehow morally meaningful, such that they have an ascending and constructive purpose. The author calls this "animist projection," saying it is "always recognizable whatever its disguises." [Not to nitpick, but perhaps the reader can also see in this author's view elements of atheism and even nihilism, but likewise "disguised" under claims of "scientific objectivity." Tu quoque!]
40 Interesting irony here as the author describes that Engels was thoroughly acquainted with the science of his day, but he ended up rejecting, in the name of dialectics, both entropy/the second law of thermodynamics and natural selection. [!!] Further, it was by these principles that Lysenko accused geneticists of maintaining theories at odds with dialectical materialism--ergo their theories were therefore necessarily false.
41ff Then the author goes to the underlying source of error of these views, which is based on anthropocentric illusion. "Rather than dispelling the illusion, the theory of evolution at first seemed to endow it with a new reality by making of man no longer the center of the entire universe but its natural heir, awaited from time immemorial. God could at last die, replaced by this new and grandiose fantasy."
43 [Long, money quote here] "The thesis I shall present in this book is that the biosphere does not contain a predictable class of objects or of events but constitutes a particular occurrence, compatible indeed with first principles, but not deducible from those principles and therefore essentially unpredictable. Let there be no misunderstanding here. In saying that as a class living beings are not predictable upon the basis of first principles, I by no means intend to suggest that they are not explicable through these principles... In my view the biosphere is unpredictable for the very same reason--neither more nor less--that the particular configuration of atoms constituting this pebble I have in my hand is unpredictable. No one will find fault with the universal theory for not affirming and foreseeing the existence of this particular configuration of atoms; it is enough for us that this actual object, unique and real, be compatible with the theory... That is enough for us as concerns the pebble, but not as concerns ourselves. We would like to think ourselves necessary, inevitable, ordained from all eternity. All religions, nearly all philosophies, and even a part of science testify to the unwearying, heroic effort of mankind desperately denying its own contingency."
Chapter 3: Maxwell's Demons
45ff "The concept of teleonomy implies the idea of an oriented, coherent, and constructive activity. By these standards proteins must be deemed the essential molecular agents of teleonomic performance in living beings." On living beings as "chemical machines" where chemical reactions occur along various pathways performed by a certain class of proteins with enzymes playing the role of catalysts; on how every machine or organism constitutes a coherent and integrated functional unit down to the very simplest example; the author admits here that "we are still a long way from elucidating the entire structure of these systems." On regulatory proteins which act as detectors of chemical signals; also on the organism as a type of self-constructing machine. [Fascinating tie-ins here to Godel, Escher, Bach as the author talks about proteins being able to recognize other proteins, which he calls a type of discriminative or potentially even cognitive faculty.]
47 "In the present chapter we shall discuss the specific catalytic function of proteins; in the following one, their regulatory function; and in chapter V their constructive function. The problem of the origin of functional structures will be taken up in this chapter and further dealt with in the next."
47ff What follows here is a section on biochemistry with definitions of proteins (macromolecules constructed of 100 to 10,000 amino acids), and amino acids are constructed of some 20 different chemical species encountered in all living beings; also citing the prodigious diversity of macroscopic structures built on top of a remarkable unity of microscopic makeup. On fibrous proteins versus globular proteins that are folded in and upon themselves; on even simple organisms having tremendous numbers of different proteins.
48ff Then a discussion of the chemical reactions "provoked" by enzymes, and various examples of isomers of different enzymes: both optical (or mirror image) isomers and geometric isomers which are chemically equivalent but have absolute discrimination with different enzymal activity, what the author calls a steric specificity of enzymes [Douglas Hofstadter, in Godel, Escher, Bach, also delves into this domain as well, discussing a type of self-referential code or even "music" from these enzymes based on the things they do and don't interact with and the proteins they "print out," and so on].
54 Two distinct steps of an enzymatic reaction: 1) the formation of a stereospecific complex between protein and substrate; 2) the catalytic activation of a reaction within the complex: a reaction oriented and specified by the structure of the complex itself. The author then goes on to say this "will enable us to arrive at one of the central concepts of molecular biology."
54ff But first! A discussion of covalent and noncovalent bonds, one sharing electrons between two or several atoms and another with other types of interaction, they also differ by the amount of energy of the associations they ensure (another way to say this is the amount of energy required to break or exchange the bond): covalent bonds are more stable than non-covalent bonds.
56ff Comments on the "energy state" over the course of a reaction: the initial, stable state, followed by a transitory intermediate state at a higher energy level and then the terminal energy state which is at the lowest energy state; also the activation energy of covalent reactions is high; thus to provoke a reaction you'll need either an increased temperature or the presence of a catalyst; in contrast, the activation energy of non-covalent reactions is very low, sometimes even zero, therefore they occur spontaneously and rapidly at low temperature and in the absence of catalysts. Thus we have certain enzyme substrate complexes which can be made to assemble and come apart very rapidly, as well as other complexes with more permanence and higher stability.
58ff Further discussion here of the "exclusive choice" of a substrate determined by its steric structure and the correct presentation of the substrate in the precise position to limit and specify the catalytic effect of the inducer groups; the author views as sort of a element of choice or of "elective discrimination"; also this is a sort of chemical building block that makes biological beings "escape" the second law of thermodynamics.
59ff On Maxwell's demon: the hypothesis that somehow these enzymes and proteins are guided by some kind of cognitive function. "The nineteenth century physicist James Maxwell attributed such a function to his microscopic demon." On the idea that there was some gatekeeper or something that "chose" to allow a reaction to happen via the exercise of a cognitive function, but yet this was not measurable or definable from any physical standpoint at all, so it was a sort of paradox. But it was unraveled by Leon Brillouin, drawing upon earlier work by Leo Szilard, basically saying that this intermediary step consumed energy that precisely offset the lessening entropy of the system as a whole. "This famous theorem is one of the sources of modern thinking regarding the equivalents between information and negative entropy. The theorem interests us here precisely because enzymes, at the microscopic level, exercise an order-creating function. But this creation of order, as we have seen, is not gratuitous; it comes about at the expense of a consumption of chemical potential."
61 "Let us retain the essential idea developed in this chapter: it is by virtue of their capacity to form, with other molecules, stereospecific and non-covalent complexes that proteins exercise their 'demoniacal' functions. The following chapters will illustrate the crucial importance of this key concept, which will recur as the ultimate interpretation of the most distinctive properties of living beings."
Chapter 4: Microscopic Cybernetics
62ff On the functional coherence of cellular machinery; even if enzymes carried out their jobs perfectly the sum of their activities would be chaos if they were not somehow interlocked into a coherent system. See also analogous coherent systems on a larger scale in animals, such as the nervous system or endocrine system which ensure coordination between organs and tissues or among cells; the author calls it a "cybernetic network" that "guarantees the functional coherence of the intracellular chemical machinery." This chapter will discuss the principles involved here.
63 On allosteric enzymes which bind to a particular substrate (just like an ordinary enzyme) but that also have the further property of recognizing one or several other compounds that have a modifying effect; these compounds may accelerate or inhibit its activity with respect to the substrate. This produces a regulatory coordinating function of interactions known as allosteric interactions. The main patterns are:
1) feedback inhibition, where the output or metabolite of the reaction inhibits the reaction,
2) feedback activation, where the enzyme is activated by a metabolite from the reaction,
3) parallel activation, where the first enzyme of a metabolic sequence is activated by a metabolite synthesized by an independent and parallel sequence--this mode of regulation keeps a balance between metabolites,
4) activation through a precursor, where the enzyme is activated by a compound which is a precursor of its immediate substrate, this keeps the demand subordinate to the offer, and
5) activation of the enzyme by the substrate itself (this is a particular and frequent case of type 4), where it plays its own ordinary role and at the same time that of an allosteric effector with respect to the enzyme." [see photo below]
66ff On the fact that allosteric enzymes are typically subject to multiple simultaneous controls from several allosteric effectors, both antagonistic or cooperative; the author gives an example of a "ternary regulation" where there's activation by the substrate (pattern 5), inhibition by the end product of the sequence (pattern 1), and parallel activation by a metabolite of the same family as an end product (pattern 3). In such a case, "the enzyme simultaneously recognizes all three effectors and measures their relative concentrations; its activity at any time represents a summing up of these three inputs of information." The author then goes through an example of a branching metabolic pathway, a sort of "metabolic fork," regulated by feedback inhibition. [See photo]
68 Note the analogy here of electronic systems, where a very weak amount of energy consumed by a relay can trigger a large-scale operation like firing a missile; the analogy can go still further: for example you could have a relay system that responds non-linearly to the system governing it: thus you can have threshold effects or finer regulation; many of these have s-curve shaped interactions where the effect of the binding compound increases faster then its concentration in the cell.
69ff Now a discussion of the mechanism of allosteric interactions. "It is known now that allosteric interactions are mediated by discrete shifts in the protein's molecular shape." Discussion of various globular proteins involuted into compact form; also certain proteins can assume two or more "conformational states"; also the shape-recognizing properties of a protein depend on the shape of its binding site or sites. The author goes through an example here to illustrate the fundamental idea that the binding compounds' interactions are totally indirect: there's no actual interactions between the various binding compounds themselves, the interactions occur between the binding compounds and the proteins that they bind to.
72 "Each of the allosteric enzymes referred to up until now constitutes a unit fulfilling a chemical function and at the same time a mediating element in regulatory interactions. Their properties give us an insight into how the homeostatic state of cellular metabolism is maintained at a peak of efficiency and coherence."
73ff Now an example of such a homeostasis: the author gives in an example of the lactose system which governs the synthesis of three proteins in the bacterium e. coli. There's a specific protein galactocide permease, which enables galacticides to penetrate and accumulate within the cell, but in the absence of this protein, the cell is impermeable to these sugars. Then a second protein hydrolyzes these beta-galacticides, and then there's a third protein with a function "not altogether clear"; but the first two proteins are indispensable to the bacteria's metabolism of lactose, thus if you put e. coli in a medium devoid of galacticides, these three proteins are synthesized at an exceedingly slow rate, but within a few minutes of adding galactoside as an inducer, the rate of synthesis increases 1,000-fold, maintaining this pace as long as the inducer is present; once the inducer is withdrawn, within a few minutes, the rate of synthesis slips back to what it was before. [See photo]
76 "Thus the logic of the system is simple in the extreme: the repressor inactivates transcription; it is inactivated in its turn by the inducer. From this double negation results a positive effect, an 'affirmation.' the logic of this negation of the negation, we may add, is not dialectical: it does not result in a new statement but in the reiteration of the original one, written within the structure of DNA in accordance with a genetic code. The logic of biological regulatory systems abides not by Hegelian laws but, like the workings of computers, by the propositional algebra of George Boole." [More ideas here that are also synthesized in Godel, Escher, Bach.]
77ff "The fundamental concept of gratuity--i.e., the independence, chemically speaking, between the function itself and the nature of the chemical signals controlling it--applies to allosteric enzymes... From this it results--and we come to our essential point--that so far as regulation through allosteric interaction is concerned, everything is possible.... The way in which allosteric interactions work hence permits a complete freedom in the 'choice' of controls." The author then goes to talk about how these controls will be "selected for the extent to which they confer heightened coherence and efficiency upon the cell or organism." "In a word, the very gratuitousness of these systems, giving molecular evolution of practically limitless field for exploration and experiment, enabled it to elaborate the huge network of cybernetic interconnections which makes each organism an autonomous functional unit, whose performances appear to transcend the laws of chemistry if not ignore them all together... And it is in the structure of these molecules that one must see the ultimate source of the autonomy, or more precisely, the self-determination the characterizes living beings in their behavior." [The author appears to be making quite a leap here as he goes from the molecular scale to the macro scale, as he extrapolates intracellular molecular functions to the complex organism level.]
78ff The author talks about how he's not going to go into interactions and coordinations between cells, tissues or organs; however, he argues that all these systems rest on the intracellular system he's describing of proteins with discriminatory stereospecific recognition properties, as performed in the case of allosteric interactions. The whole system, at whatever level you want to look at it, rests on this foundational framework. [Again, this seems like a leap: it's sort of like describing synaptic functions and then saying it explains consciousness, which is an emergent property that is in no way clearly explained by the "foundational" synaptic function.]
79ff Finally a discussion of the quarrel between "reductionists" and "holists": the holist school (the author condescendingly says "which, phoenix-like, springs up anew with every generation") argues that you cannot reduce the properties of a complex organization to the sum of the properties of its parts; the author says holists don't understand or fail to appreciate the scientific method; he gives an example of a Martian engineer trying to understand earthling computers: how far could he get if he refused to dissect the computer's basic electronic components? [Again, the brain is a good counterexample here: you can fully understand the basic functions and yet know next to nothing about the emergent property of consciousness that comes from it!] He goes on to argue that from the examination of the cybernetic system of the simplest cell, "it becomes possible for us to grasp in what very real sense the organism does effectively transcend physical laws--even while obeying them--thus achieving at once the pursuit and fulfillment of its own purpose."
Chapter 5: Molecular Ontogenesis
81 "In both their macroscopic structure and their functions, living beings, as we have seen, are closely comparable to machines. On the other hand, the different radically from them in their manner of coming into being... In this chapter I wish to show that this process of spontaneous and autonomous morphogenesis rests, at bottom, on the stereospecific recognition properties of proteins; that it is primarily a microscopic process before manifesting itself in macroscopic structures. Finally, it is the primary structure of proteins that we shall consult for the 'secret' to those cognitive properties thanks to which, like Maxwell's demons, they animate and build living systems."
81-2 Note the quick admission here that nobody knows how to analyze this microscopic protein process in terms of the development of a living being from fetus, or even fertilized cell to mature form; see here as the author phrases it in biology jargon, "...we are a long way yet from knowing how to analyze the ontogenesis of macroscopic structures in terms of microscopic interactions."
82ff On a small group of "oligomeric" proteins: the author calls them a type of "microscopic crystal," a special class of "closed crystals" in the sense that they form certain mechanically identical versions that can be converted by symmetry or rotation; also other aspects of these proteins and their subunits: they will reassemble spontaneously, for example if subjected to heat; also this reassembly can happen even if they're in a complex soup with hundreds of thousands of other proteins, they still bond with only that particular protein; the author argues that this is an extremely specific recognition process, he even argues that it is an epigenetic process, that it is a spontaneous process. Note also the footnote on page 83-84 describing the previous theory of "preformationists" (who believe the egg contain a miniature of the adult animal), versus "epigeneticists" (who believe some type of sort of genetic enrichment process happens out of a base of initial genetic information).
84ff On spontaneous character of the molecular process of epigenesis, where the chemical potential is already in the solution of monomers; it is spontaneous in the thermodynamic sense because the bonds are non-covalent, thus it is kinetically spontaneous; also note the example given of the T4 bacteriophage which can spontaneously assemble in vitro. The author discusses this in the context of how order, structural differentiation and acquisition of function can all "appear" out of a random mixture of molecules initially devoid of activity or functional capacity--except for the various proteins' ability to recognize their partners proteins, with which they will bond and build a structure. This of course is a much higher order of complexity than a crystal but the chemical interactions are "basically of the same nature."
87ff "No preformed and complete structure pre-existed anywhere; but the architectural plan for it was present in its very constituents. It can therefore come into being spontaneously and autonomously, without outside help and without the injection of additional information. The necessary information was present, but unexpressed, in the constituents. The epigenetic building of a structure is not a creation; it is a revelation." [I love the borderline religious language used here, yet of course the underlying philosophical context is deeply atheistic. And the underlying phenomena are intrinsically beautiful, even miraculous. Highly ironic on a few levels.] The author goes on to say that this phenomenon, at the microscopic, level must be applied to the macroscopic structures of tissues, organs, limbs, etc., although he admits this extrapolation "still needs the support of conclusive experimental evidence." Also the order of complexity at the macroscopic level is far different; moreover, the interactions do not occur between molecular components but between cells: somehow cells are able to recognize one another discriminatively, but "the components are structures permitting cells to identify each other are still unknown." The author suggests the answer is in the structural characteristics of cellular membranes. Also comments here about the incredible complexity when you get to long-distance influences across, say, a central nervous system, or via other highly complex apparatuses in the body; these are frontiers that are totally unexplained in embryology.
90ff "I hope to show that the detailed analysis of these molecular structures, in which the ultimate 'secret' of teleonomy lies hidden, leads to profoundly significant conclusions." [But first!] Monod describes aspects of the structure of these three-dimensional globular proteins: their structure is determined by covalent bonds that form themselves into exceedingly flexible structures that can take on wide variety of shapes; the "native" shape of a globular protein is stabilized by a great number of non-covalent interactions, so that it folds into a "compact pseudo-globular bundle"; these structures' primary formation (or "conformation" as he calls it) is precisely defined to within a fraction of an angstrom.
92 Then a description of the mechanisms by which these structures form:
a) "the genetic determinism of protein structures exclusively specifies the sequence of the amino acid residues corresponding to a given protein" and
b) "the polypeptide fiber thus synthesized folds in upon itself spontaneously and autonomously, ending up in its pseudoglobular functional shape.
92ff "Thus, among the thousands of different ways in which the polypeptide fiber could theoretically bundle itself, only one is actually adopted. Here we have manifestly a true epigenetic process at the simplest possible level, that of an isolated macromolecule. To the unfolded fiber any number of conformations are open. Moreover, prior to folding it is devoid of any biological activity, and notably of any capacity for stereospecific recognition. For the folded form, on the other hand, a single shape and state actually obtains, which consequently corresponds to a much higher degree of order. With this state and with no other its functional activity is connected. The explanation of this little miracle of molecular epigenesis is, in principle at least, relatively simple." Why? because 1) the protein's bundled, folded state is dynamically more stable because aspects of it are hydrophobic; in other words the "negentropy" comes from the release of water molecules; and 2) only certain folded shapes produce the most compact possible structure thus that structure is favored over all others; or, to simplify, the "chosen" structure is the one expelling the most water molecules.
94 "Thus there is a seeming contradiction between the statement that the genome "entirely defines" the function of a protein and the fact that this function is linked to a three-dimensional structure whose data content is richer than the direct contribution made to the structure by the genome." [In a related context Hofstadter goes into this as well, describing how these proteins reveal information based on an underlying code, and one metaphorical way to say this is "they print out a message."]
95 A couple of other metaphors here: the highly-ordered structures are like a blossoming firework built on specific initial conditions; thus "all the teleonomic structures and performances of living beings is thus enclosed in sequences of residues making up polypeptide fibers, [which are] 'embryos' of the globular proteins which in biology play the role Maxwell assigned to his demons a hundred years ago. In a sense, a very real sense, it is at this level of chemical organization that the secret of life lies, if indeed there is any one such secret."
96ff On the first description of a globular protein's complete sequence, from [Frederick] Sanger and his work with the insulin protein in 1952; it turned to be both a revelation and a disappointment because its elective properties had no regularity or restrictive characteristics; the author takes this one step further saying "To be specific: these structures are "random'" and yet they're not synthesized at random: a paradox. "...the 'random' sequence of each protein is in fact reproduced thousands and thousands of times over, in each organism, each cell, with each generation, by a highly accurate mechanism which guarantees the invariance of the structure."
98 "With the globular protein we already have, at the molecular level, veritable machine--a machine in its functional properties, but not, we now see, and it's fundamental structure, where nothing but the play of blind combinations can be discerned... In the ontogenesis of a functional protein are reflected the origin and descent of the whole biosphere."
Chapter 6: Invariance and Perturbations
99ff On the two opposing Western philosophical attitudes: 1) that the ultimate truth "can reside only in perfectly immutable forms," or 2) where "the only real truth resides in flux and evolution." That these are ideological positions, and how science is forbidden from taking part in this debate; that its job is to study evolution (of the universe or whatever systems are contained in the universe like the biosphere, man, etc.) and that its job is also to ferret out "invariants"--like laws of physics, or of energy conservation, or laws of kinetics. Also mention here of the "classic problem" of whether these invariants are "laws" or simply "fictions substituted for reality in order to obtain a workable image" of reality.
101ff On "anatomical invariants" in zoology, paleontology and other domains, built on classifying basic anatomical types; and then with the advent of the discovery of the cell and cellular theory, a new unity could be seen underlying the diversity of life forms; we could see something fundamental in common between radically different life forms ranging from blue algae to an octopus to a human being; and then with the advances of biochemistry in the 20th century revealing "the profound and strict oneness, on the microscopic level, of the whole of the living world. Today we know that from the bacterium to man the chemical machinery is essentially the same..." The same macromolecular components: proteins and nucleic acids, constituted of the same 20 amino acids and four kinds of nucleotides, based on the same reactions and chemical operations, the same underlying "universal metabolic sequences."
103 "To biologists of my generation fell the discovery of the virtual identity of cellular chemistry throughout the entire biosphere."
104 But this opened up another problem: if all these chemical processes are the same, what is the source of all of the prodigious morphological and physiological diversity in the biosphere? And likewise how do all these diverse species using these same chemical transformations maintain themselves in the same structural standard from generation to generation? "We now have a solution to this problem. The universal components--the nucleotides on the one side, the amino acids on the other--are the logical equivalent of an alphabet in which the structure and consequently the specific associative functions of proteins are spelled out. In this alphabet can therefore be written all the diversity of structures and performances the biosphere contains."
104 "The fundamental biological invariant is DNA. That is why Mendel's defining of the gene as the unvarying bearer of hereditary traits, its chemical identification by [Oswald] Avery (confirmed by [Alfred] Hershey), and the elucidation by [James] Watson and [Francis] Crick of the structural basis of its replicative invariance, without any doubt constitute the most important discoveries ever made in biology. To which of course must be added the theory of natural selection, whose certainty and full significance were established only by those later discoveries." [Here is where the reader should read Vox Day's book Probability Zero, which discusses the "MITTENS" theory of the mathematical impossibility of natural selection as the primary driver of evolution, because of what is now known about the rate of trait fixation across populations. There is simply nowhere near enough time!]
105ff On DNA replication and translation [see photo below]; on how the DNA's familiar double helix is the simplest structure that enables the operations of symmetry, translation and rotation; on thinking of the DNA helix as a type of fibrillar crystal, or an aperiodic crystal (because the sequence of the base pairs is non-repetitive). On how the each sequential element in the DNA strands act sort of like a crystalline seed which "chooses" and orients the molecules that spontaneously link to it. Then on DNA polymerase, which catalyzes a split in the DNA and also contributes to the precision of the complementary copy, "that is, to the fidelity of the transfer of information." Note, however, this accuracy is not absolute: this is a major point that the author will return to shortly.
108 On the chemically arbitrary nature of this DNA code; also on the irreversible nature of the information conveyance: it can never go in the opposite direction from protein to DNA, it has to go the other way.
110-111 "Hence the entire system is totally, intensely conservative, locked into itself, utterly impervious to any 'hints' from the outside world... And so it would seem that by virtue of its very structure the system ought to resist all change, all evolution... and we have there the explanation for a fact which is indeed far more paradoxical than evolution itself: namely, the prodigious stability of certain species which have been able to reproduce without appreciable modification for hundreds of millions of years." [It is fascinating that you have some animals that don't evolve (see the Coelacanth for example which is a 60m year old species), and you have other species that show astoundingly rapid evolution: see the human/chimpanzee last common ancestor and human evolution since this hypothesized primate.]
112 [Money quote here, on the chance scramblings, deletions or additions of nucleotides in the genetic "text" as the only possible source of modification]: "And since they constitute the only possible source of modifications in the genetic text, itself the sole repository of the organisms hereditary structures, it necessarily follows that chance alone is it the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution; the central concept of modern biology is no longer one among other possible or even conceivable hypotheses. It is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. And nothing warrants the supposition--or the hope--that on this score our position is likely ever to be revised." [One reads this and can't help thinking that neo-Darwinian thinkers would do themselves a big rhetorical favor if they used less arrogantly absolute language. It reeks of defensive insecurity, of small-penis energy. We'll see more examples of this kind of anti-rhetoric in the coming chapters.]
113 The author now says a few clarifying things about chance and randomness: comments on the "operational uncertainty" of roulette or dice; the "chance" of a hammer falling and hitting your head; versus the "essential uncertainty" of quantum phenomena, or the "chance" of a replication error in a genetic message.
115 On evolution as an "absolutely creative force" per Henri Bergson, or as a "revelation of nature's hitherto unexpressed designs" per de Chardin, Spencer or Engels; the author tells readers here that modern theory considers "revelation" in this sense to apply to the epigenetic level, but not to evolutionary emergence.
116 On modern biology's view "that all the properties of living beings rest on a fundamental mechanism of molecular invariance. For modern theory evolution is not a property of living beings, since it stems from the very imperfections of the conservative mechanism which indeed constitutes their unique privilege. And so one may say that the same source of fortuitous perturbations, of 'noise,' which in a non-living (i.e.,non-replicative) system would lead little by little to the disintegration of all structure, is the progenitor of evolution in the biosphere and accounts for its unrestricted liberty of creation, thanks to the replicative structure of DNA: that registry of chance, that tone-deaf conservatory where the noise is preserved along with the music." [It is quite an interesting paradox.]
Chapter 7: Evolution
118ff On the genetic "accident" (meaning a mutation) being mechanically and faithfully replicated and translated. "Drawn out of the realm of pure chance, the accident enters into that of necessity, of the most implacable certainties."
119ff On post-Darwinian evolutionists, notably Herbert Spencer, who visualize a "stark, naively ferocious" idea of evolution as a struggle for life, whereas the neo-Darwinians propose "a much richer concept" of the differential rate of reproduction. [In this next part, note the descriptor "our less well-informed predecessors"--an phrase that is (unintentionally) amusing: it illustrates of the arrogance of how modern scientists tend to think the scientists before them were hapless dopes, while forgetting that future scientists will likely see them as equally hapless dopes; a few minutes of cogitation about this should make all scientists of all eras (and for that matter all of us too) a lot more epistemically humble about everything.]: On idea of contemporary biological research and its understanding of the power, complexity and coherence of the intracellular cybernetic network "enables us to understand better than our less well-informed predecessors that any 'novelty,' in the shape of an alteration of protein structure, will be tested before all else for its compatibility with the whole of the system already bound by the innumerable controls commanding the execution of the organisms projective purpose. Hence the only acceptable mutations are those which, at the very least, do not lessen the coherence of the teleonomic apparatus, but rather, further strengthen it in its already assumed orientation or (probably more rarely) open the way to new possibilities." In other words, the chemical system and teleconomic apparatus sets initial conditions for the admission or rejection of a "chance-bred mutation." "...that is why evolution itself seems to be fulfilling a design, seems to be carrying out a 'project.'" [Again, this gets to the central paradox of "Chance and Necessity": you have order and a seeming direction/purpose, a seeming teleonomy, but yet it is foundationally random. And yet it is also both random and yet also highly ordered, yet another paradox.]
120ff On the shocking rarity of mutations: "In bacteria the probability of a given gene undergoing a mutation which would significantly affect the functional properties of the corresponding protein is on the order of between one and a million and one in a hundred million per cellular generation." But note here there could be several billion cells in a few millimeters of water, thus that population will have 10 or 100 or 1,000 mutations, thus in large populations mutation is the rule! Thus with 3 billion humans [this was earth's population in 1970] there could be some 100 billion to 1 trillion mutations per generation because of the number of cellular generations per organism.
121ff This brings us to yet another paradox: the amazing stability of forms in the biosphere. See for example certain species that have remained "stationary" for hundreds of millions of years. Also, yet another paradox: the present day cell, with its invariant chemical organization, has been in existence for 2 to 3 billion years. Thus these highly invariant systems have retained and integrated only a tiny fraction of the mutations "offered it by nature's roulette."
123 "Evolution in the biosphere is therefore a necessarily irreversible process defining a direction in time." [Another perhaps more flexible phrase to use here might be "path-dependency."]
124ff Interesting discussion here on antibodies, and the fact that they can develop thanks to exposure to an organism (like a virus or via a vaccine), but at the same time the organism itself produces these cells with quite a bit of randomness--"playing roulette" you could say. Thus there is actual randomness in immune system cells themselves in terms of their specific associative structure, it isn't just foreign antigens that "prime" our immune cells, it is the organism itself.
125ff Other difficulties about accepting selective theory: assuming the sole responsibility is the external environment; there can be behavior components among higher organisms that also drive selection; also great evolutionary turning points can come from the invasion of a new ecological space; also sexual selection, see for example complex courting behavior between birds. [I think a critic of neo-Darwinian theory would argue that these are all examples of adding "epicycles" to the underlying theory of natural selection.]
128ff On the "evolution" of culture, ideas and knowledge, all of which occurs on top of the biological substrate of human existence. Note that this is a development connected with the considerable development of the human central nervous system in homo sapiens. See also Noam Chomsky's claim that the underlying form of all human languages is the same; underlying structure is the same.
130ff On instances where tremendously rapid change happened in a very short time. See for example where the author describes a period some two million years where a period of "sustained selective pressure" drove the progressive development of the human skull and brain; also we observe nothing similar in any other primate line: see for example how the present-day ape has the same cranial capacity of its forebears several million years ago. The author theorizes that "...the most rudimentary symbolic communication, through the radically new possibilities it offered, constituted one of those crucial initial 'choices' which are binding upon the future of a species in that they give rise to a new selective pressure. The selection must have favored the development of linguistic ability itself and hence the development of the brain, the organ that serves it." [I never guessed that I would catch this obviously brilliant scientist telling "just so" stories and departing from the scientific method... but it just happened right here in black and white.]
131ff The author then goes on, over the next few pages, to articulate various "just so" explanations for the inexplicably fast evolution of the proto-human primate line: that ancient primates were capable of tool use and therefore probably capable of some communication; that this proto-ability itself led to so much survival value that it thus created its own selective pressure "the likes of which no speechless species could ever experience." A discussion here also of child language acquisition, as well as the fact that learning language after puberty is severely hampered (example here would be people with strokes or brain lesions or adults learning a second language); this indicates that speech has a biological foundation and therefore it "must reflect an embryological, an epigenetic process"; on the idea of a symbiosis "between the cognitive functions and the symbolic language they beget"; and then finally, see this quote: "...spoken language, when it appeared among primitive mankind, not only made possible the evolution of culture but contributed decisively to man's physical evolution."
Chapter 8: The Frontiers
138ff On looking at the grand journey of evolution over 3 billion years: asking how it possibly could be a product of an enormous lottery: "While one's conviction may be restored by a detailed review of the accumulated modern evidence that this conception alone is compatible with the facts (notably with the molecular mechanisms of replication, mutation, and translation), it affords no synthetic, intuitive, and immediate grasp of the vast sweep of evolution. The miracle stands 'explained'; it does not strike us as any less miraculous. As Francois Mauriac wrote, 'What this professor says is far more incredible than what we poor Christians believe.'" [This is quite an interesting mix of rhetoric and handwaving here, including the rhetorical effect of the seemingly condescending use of the quote about Christianity. As a reader, I had hoped he would resolve this specific problem, but alas, this chapter drops this initial thread and instead covers some of the areas that evolutionary theory either cannot--or is still trying to--explain, like the origins of life/primordial soup problem, or the emergence of self-awareness/consciousness.]
139 Interesting point here articulating a type of fallacy: the fact that if you can't have a mental image of certain abstractions, that is not therefore an argument against that thing; see quantum physics/particle physics. Evolution likewise is one of these types of abstractions that people really struggle with.
139ff Now onto the meat of this chapter and a discussion of the frontiers of evolution: the origin of the first living systems on one end, and then on the other end the inner workings of the central nervous system of man which the author calls "the most intensely teleonomic system ever to have emerged." First on the problems of life's origins: how natural selection doesn't solve 1) the first formation of nucleotides and amino acids, nor 2) the formation of self-replicating macromolecules from the first nucleotides, nor does it solve 3) the formation of the first cells around these replicative structures.
140ff "...the overall picture seems fairly clear." [What?? This is a rather odd thing to say as the author launches into a discussion where picture is far from clear.] On the problem of explaining the first emergence of self-replication macromolecules: "This difficulty does not seem insurmountable": that a polynucleotide can guide "the synthesis of the complementary sequence" [Basically he's arguing that "it just happened" here; astounding for an otherwise well-regarded scientist] and "the moment it got under way, the three fundamental processes--replication, mutation, and selection--were at work and must have bestowed a heavy advantage of the macromolecules most able, by their sequential structure, to replicate spontaneously." [Think about the underlying logic here: it is a just so story plus circular logic.]
142ff On the third problem, the formation of the first organism, where he admits nobody has any idea. The first bacterium formed some billion years ago. Note also here the paradox of the genetic code, which is meaningless unless translated: since you can't have any translating machinery without at least 50 macro molecular components, how did the circle become closed? He guesses/hypothesizes that stereochemical reasons account for the structure of the code, and the sequence was chosen because there existed a certain stereochemical affinity, rather than the system and structure being chemically arbitrary and totally random; essentially we lack an explanation for the both code's existence and its universality. Hence the quote: Omne vivum ex ovo--literally "it all starts with an egg" a saying that more of less means organisms cannot just appear in nature out of non-living material.
145ff On the essential zero probability of all of this, the author offers a rather nihilistic quote here: "Our number came up in the Monte Carlo game. Is it any wonder if, like the person who has just made a million at the casino, we feel strange and a little unreal?"
146ff On explaining the central nervous system: discussion of the functions of the CNS, including coordinative functions like neuromotor activity, programming of actions, analyzing/reacting to sensory inputs, and cognitive functions like registering events, imagining/representing things.
152 Interesting comment here about what the author calls the "uncompromising empiricism" [and that we might call "naive empericism"] of studies on seemingly complex animal behavior that looks "intelligent" but actually is not; things are not always as they seem. He cites the work of Konrad Lorenz, who showed how mistaken the conception is that elements of animal behavior are learned; rather there's an underlying innate program that is genetically determined, but this program initiates and guides certain learnings (of a sort) which follow pre-established patterns; possibly similar to how a child acquires language.
154 On the unique "simulative function" of the human brain, although it is not unique to humans. On the creative function springing from it, and the incredible sophistication of this apparatus; then the author posits a [circular] hypothesis this sophisticated simulation capacity existed in our evolutionary ancestors and then "was propelled to the level reached with Homo sapiens."
159 "There lies the frontier, still almost as impassable for us as it was for Descartes. Not until that barrier has been passed will dualism cease to be a force, and to that extent a truth, in the lives of all of us." [He's referring here to Descartes' idea that the mind and body are separate, that there is a dualism in man, a physical and a spiritual aspect; an idea that's revolting to many darwinian theorists--especially those who attempt to use Darwin to "prove" atheism.] But then sort of an appeasing quote here: "What doubt can there be of the presence of the spirit within us? To give up the illusion that sees in it an immaterial 'substance' is not to deny the existence of the soul, but on the contrary to begin to recognize the complexity, the richness, the unfathomable profundity of the genetic and cultural heritage and of the personal experience, conscious or otherwise, which together constitute this being of ours: the unique and irrefutable witness to itself."
Chapter 9: The Kingdom and the Darkness
160 The other now imagines the process of evolution, once the simulation ability began in ancestral man's primate ancestors' minds: he imagines that "for hundreds of thousands of years ideational evolution kept only a short pace ahead of physical evolution, its progress hampered by the meager development of a cortex capable only of anticipating events directly related to immediate survival." This was then followed by intense selective pressure, which developed this power of simulation, as well as language to convey its operation, which led to the astonishing swiftness of the evolution attested to by fossil skulls. [Once again, even Nobel Prize winners occasionally default to just so stories.] Then, at a certain point, the ideational component would have a greater and greater independence from the restraints of the brain/central nervous system once that brain developed to a certain level of complexity. Then primitive man had fewer short-term survival problems as he developed more and more master over his environment. But selective pressures then took on a different character: selection now had more to do with intra-species strife, now that man/primitive man is dominating his environment; thus this henceforth became a principal factor of selection in the human species. Then speculating that the sudden disappearance of Neanderthal man was the work of ancestral homo sapiens, and that this drove even more selection forces for "intelligence imagination, will, and ambition" as well traits like group cohesion, group aggressiveness, respect for tribal law, etc. Thus the selection is no longer "natural" in the Darwinian sense.
163 Here the author talks about the dangers of genetic degradation in modern societies because of the difference now between personal success and genetic success; he talks about the difference between the inverse correlation between intelligence and number of children per couple; leading to the concern that there might be a concentration or a shrinkig of the elite in relative numbers in terms of intelligence [you could call this the "Idiocracy" view of future society]. Also on the weeding out of physically and mentally unfit humans in the historical past, but not anymore, thus "the mechanism which used to protect the species from degradation (the inevitable result when natural selection is suspended) now functions hardly at all..." [Some of these thoughts are cancellable offenses nowadays! But I guess they were still "permitted thoughts" back in 1971 when this book was published.]
164 Also interesting [and non-predictive] comments here where he asserts that the complexity of the genome will "probably forever rule out" genetic manipulation.
164 "Conditions of non-selection (or of selection-in-reverse) like those reigning in the advanced societies are a definite peril to the species. For it to become very serious, however, would take quite a while: say ten or fifteen generations, or several centuries."
165ff On ideas being subject to the same evolutionary properties that organisms are subject to: ideas can perpetuate themselves, they can "breed," they can fuse, recombine, they can evolve with their own selection mechanisms, based on the "performance value" of an idea, which depends on the behavior of those who adopt it. See for example religious ideologies; also on the fact that you can't really separate an idea's power to spread from its power to perform; also note this interesting [and vaguely condescending] quote: "What is very plain, however, is that the ideas having the highest invading potential are those that explain man by assigning him his place in an immanent destiny, in whose bosom his anxiety dissolves."
167ff On humans' need for mythical explanations: "The invention of myths and religions, the construction of vast philosophical systems--they are the price this social animal has had to pay in order to survive without having to yield to pure automatism... How else account for the fact that in our species the religious phenomenon is invariably at the base of social structure?" He describes these explanations as "ontogonies"; note also comments here on Plato's "normative ontogeny" argued in The Republic that history only corrupts ideal forms, thus the solution is to move backward in time. [Today we can recommend looking to the ancients for our wisdom, it at least has stood the test of time.] In contrast we have Marx and Hegel promising a liberation along a "necessary and favorable" plan. [It's worth noting that this author once was a Marxist, but later criticized Marxism for its claim to inevitability.]
169 Another interesting quote here, which carries a tone of the arrogance of post modern Enlightenment-era thinking, where everything is assumed to improve, that we are way wiser than our predecessors, that SOYANCE!!1!! will solve all our problems with its perfected objectivity, etc.: "If it is true that the need for a complete explanation is innate, that its absence begets a profound ache within; if the only form of explanation capable of putting the soul at ease is that of a total history which discloses the meaning of man by assigning him a necessary place in nature's scheme; if, to appear genuine, meaningful, soothing, the explanation must blend into the long 'animist' tradition, then we understand why it took so many thousands of years for the kingdom of ideas to be invaded by the one according to which objective knowledge is the only authentic source of truth... With nothing to recommend it but a certain puritan arrogance, how could such an idea win acceptance? It did not; it still has not. It has however commanded recognition; but that is because, solely because, of its prodigious power of performance." ["Performance" is an interesting choice of words here: he likely means explanatory performance, but on a philosophical level, or a meaning level, the performance of "objectivity" and post Enlightenment materialism has been ghastly. Note that Rod Dreher in his book Living in Wonder scratched at some of the underlying problems of what he called the "materialist" world view, where we moderns put our faith now in science, the state, technology, etc., yet these things leave us empty.]
171 "Armed with all the powers, enjoying all the riches they owe to science, our societies are still trying to live by and to teach systems of values already blasted at the root by science itself... For the first time in history as civilization is trying to shape itself while clinging desperately to the animist tradition to justify its values, and at the same time abandoning it as the source of knowledge, of truth." [Animist here probably can be thought of as an unintentionally condescending term meaning belief in God.] Note the next few sentences are rather striking as he talks about the liberal democracies teaching a "disgusting farrago" of Judeo-Christian religiosity, scientistic progressism, belief in the natural rights of man and utilitarian pragmatism; and then even more striking he says the Marxist societies with their "materialist and dialectical religion of history" have "on the face of it a more solid moral framework than the liberal societies boast." [Note that he wrote this in 1971; the reader wants to go back and grab him by the neck and make him read The God that Failed!!!]
172 On how what ails the modern spirit is a confusion of the symptoms of a disorder with its underlying cause; in other words technology is not the reason for the destruction of nature or the soaring population, in fact these denote "a faulty technology rather than too much of it."
172 On how science does not judge values, in fact it must ignore them, and thus man must "wake up to his total solitude, his fundamental isolation." [Hmmmm. If this is what prizing "objectivity" and "science" wins me, I want none of it.]
173ff Then a discussion of values and knowledge; how in an animist system values and knowledge are not in conflict, because there's no distinction between the two categories, they are aspects of the same reality; whereas the postulate of objectivity denounces this "old covenant" and instead says there's no confusion between value judgments with judgments arrived at through knowledge. The author arrives at what he calls "the ethic of knowledge," a value system and ethical system based [somehow?] on objective knowledge itself.
178ff A heck of a quote here: "Finally, the ethic of knowledge is, in my view, the one at once rational and resolutely idealistic attitude upon which a real socialism might be built." He then takes issue with the materialism upon which socialism is currently based, which he says claims to scientifically establish laws of history; he calls this "a ludicrous parody of that very science upon which it claims to stand." Instead, we should have a "really scientific socialist humanism." [Essentially this is the "no true socialist" fallacy: in all of the instances where we've tried socialism and it's failed, it's just because we haven't "done it right." If we would just do it right--I guess by using his "objective ethic of knowledge"--socialism would for sure work perfectly! It's unfortunate it's such a brilliant man in his expert domain of organic chemistry could be such a dumb smart kid when it comes to the domain of (all-too-human) political systems. In one's idealistic pursuit of the objective ethic of knowledge it is all to easy to forget that governments are run by all-too-fallible human beings.]
180 "Accepted as the foundation for social and political institutions, hence is the measure of their authenticity, their value, only the ethic of knowledge could lead to socialism. [If it only leads to socialism then I'm not sure I want anything to do with his "ethic of knowledge!" He's not selling his ideas all that well here.]
180 "A utopia. Perhaps. But it is not an incoherent dream. It is an idea that owes its force to its logical coherence alone. It is the conclusion to which the search for authenticity necessarily leads. The ancient covenant is in pieces; man knows at last that he is alone in the universe's unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only by chance. His destiny is nowhere spelled out, nor is his duty. The kingdom above or the darkness below: it is for him to choose."
[The appendices of this book can safely be skipped; the author could easily have left them out.]
Appendix 1: Structure of Proteins
183ff A discussion of the structure of proteins: "polypeptide" chains; macromolecules made up of linear polymers of amino acids; various drawings/diagrams of the twenty amino acids that are the universal constituents of proteins.
187ff On the peptide bond, which is rigid, and the other bonds, which permit the linked atoms to rotate: this in turn permits the polypeptide to bundle up and fold in a varied and flexible way.
Appendix 2: Nucleic Acids
189ff Nucleic acids are macromolecules resulting from the linear polymerization of compounds called nucleotides. In DNA there are four nucleotides: adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine, A, G, C and T, these are the "letters of the genetic alphabet."
192 Comments on mutation from the various "accidents" which may alter the mechanism of DNA substituting one nucleotide pair for another.
Appendix 3: The Genetic Code
193ff Discussion here of the mechanisms of the DNA alphabet and its translation machinery using messenger RNA, also technical aspects of the translation process.
Appendix 4: Note Concerning the Second Law of Thermodynamics
197ff Some definition of terms here and examples: "...according to the second law every phenomenon, whatever it may be, is necessarily accompanied by an increase of entropy within the system where it occurs." Then on the development of the kinetic theory of matter, which brought out a deeper and broader understanding of the second law; on the idea that a source of "negentropy" (negative entropy) is definable under certain conditions as "information"; this then takes us to one of the fundamental statements of information theory: that "the transmission of a message is necessarily accompanied by a certain dissipation of the information it contains, as the theoretical equivalent of the second law of thermodynamics."
Vocab:
Teleonomy: the apparent purposefulness or goal-directedness of living organisms and their structures, arising from evolutionary adaptation and natural processes, rather than conscious design or intent.
Ne varietur: "it must not be changed"
Omne vivum ex ovo: "all life comes from an egg"