Is "life" based on clockwork biology or quantum uncertainty?
Article Abstract:
Uncertainty is inherent in responses of cells to stimuli and is a key in cell biology. Probability and stochastic behavior are basic in various phenomena among cells. Cells and organelles are so small that they can have very few molecules, so mass action predictions do not apply. Given Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, small particles do not have exact positions or velocities. Physical reality for cells and molecular biology is in quantum physics. If Einstein is right, however, an unseen mechanism explains quantum duality, and biology is clockwork.
Publication Name: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0031-5982
Year: 1997
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Is biology reducible to chemistry?
Article Abstract:
Similar physical and chemical laws control the living organisms and non-living systems, despite the complex nature of living organisms. The cells of the living organisms are composed of elements similar to those found in inanimate objects. The same chemicals bind them together and the same physical laws determine their interaction. The rejection of the concept of vitalism and the recognition of the teleonomic nature of biology can help in the reconciliation of the reductionist and the anti-reductionist positions.
Publication Name: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0031-5982
Year: 1996
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Biology is beautiful
Article Abstract:
The study of beauty in biology deserves attention because it could strengthen the link between science and the humanities, and probably alleviate the alienation of science from the larger culture to which it belongs. The study of aesthetics in science will need an elucidation of terms and a method to quantify beauty. Sense of order, pattern, rhythm and balance, symmetry and form and unity and simplicity are discussed as biological concepts that will lend themselves easily to a study of aesthetics.
Publication Name: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0031-5982
Year: 1992
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