Hi To digress considerably from your query, I find it interesting that the author concludes his paper with the following reference to (Robert) Rosen and "relatively easy experiments"
"If Darwinian reductionism really does transcend the old reductionist-holist dichotomy, systems biology would be the ideal place to demonstrate it. Likewise, we are now in a position to test Rosen’s theories about noncomputable network structures, and to search for real biological examples of them. Just as experimental programmes were essential to the victories of mechanism in the 1910s and neo-Darwinism in the 1930s, only those theories that immediately suggest relatively easy experiments will be winners." Biological systems can be treated holistically, or empirically or reductionistically - the "dichotomy" is superficial. Unfortunately, in my view, and apparently in Rosen's too - the modern trend towards reductionism in (say) biology has resulted in an explosion of information / data (masquerading as science) generated from "easy experiments" which focus on the.perceivable (light matter) and ignores the dark matter (or vitalism) which cannot be fully detected by us as yet. After the storm the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species set off in 1859 especially in religious circles, a religious organization in Bengal (India) initiated in 1860 a program of experiments using electromagnetic particles on "simple" life forms. Just today [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8593780.stm] CERN has achieved a significant step forward towards rediscovering the "God particle" (Higgs Boson- named in part after S.N Bose a part of that extended research program). Considering that in the latter 19th century remarkable biological transformations / states (levitation, biological transmutation) were achieved with incredibly primitive and cheap equipment, it will be really interesting to speculate by when the 10 billion dollar CERN Hadron collider finally achieves in folding life from the "dark side" - the immortal "positronic brain" (??). [http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-02/darpas-mad-vision-create-kill-switches-inside-immortal-synthetic-organisms] On 3/30/10, glen e. p. ropella <[email protected]> wrote: > > So what do we really mean when we say that systems biology is holistic? > http://www.biomedcentral.com/1752-0509/4/22 > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
