Accessible updates on the technical literature; commentaries on that literature; and introductions (with links) to new articles associated with the “Biology Worthy of Life” project. The content in general relates to the dramatic discoveries re-shaping our understanding of organisms. The current focus is on gene regulation, evolution, and the meaning of organic wholeness — all of which can make for some occasionally wide-ranging excursions. Notes, commentaries, and articles are by Stephen L. Talbott of The Nature Institute.
RSS FeedWhy We Cannot Explain the Form of Organisms 23 June 2020
Is the form of an organism something that needs to be explained? Or does our our subtle tracing of biological form and transformation already give us the explanation and understanding we seek — because through this tracing we apprehend the thinking that is the intelligi...
What Is the Problem of Form? 28 May 2020
How does the yet-unrealized form of a mature animal become the ‘goal’ of the animal’s embryological development? How can we understand future-directed causation and top-down causation in biology?All Science Must Be Rooted in Experience 16 April 2020
All science is experienced-based. We have a conflicted attitude toward this truth, believing as we do that science must be empirical (based on experience), while at the same time we denigrate experience as merely subjective. Freeing ourselves from this contradiction is a...
The Keys To This Book 17 December 2019
There are two central themes in the book, “Evolution As It Was Meant To Be — And the Living Narratives That Tell Its Story”: 1) every organism comprises more than a set of physical and chemical interactions, but possesses an agency through which it weaves a life sto...
Evolution Writ Small 4 December 2019
When we look at organic development, we see powers of directed change in the only place where they ever appear — in living organisms. These powers can hardly be irrelevant to evolution.A Mess of Causes 14 November 2019
Causes and effects are never neatly separable in organisms. Over and above physical causation, we discover a story-like coordination of causes. Biologists widely recognize this, but nevertheless try to describe biological processes as if they were nothing but a successio...
Our Bodies Are Formed Streams 27 August 2019
In living beings, structure arises from movement, not the other way around. Movement and transformation are primary. This is particularly evident in recent discoveries about the functioning of disordered proteins and about the importance of phase transitions in the cyto...
Let’s Not Begin With Natural Selection 19 July 2019
The key ideas of natural selection are commonly presented in the form of a core logic, or algorithm, that leads, with absolute certainty, to meaningful evolution. In reality, this logic is empty, and all the meaning depends upon what organism-agents actually do. By itself,...
Biology’s Missing Ideas 31 May 2019
All biological description involves narrative (story-like) elements, including purposiveness, intention, and, in general, more-than-physical meanings. But, while employing such description constantly, biologists prefer not to acknowledge it or account for it in their the...
The Mystery of an Unexpected Coherence 19 May 2019
RNA splicing and, in some organisms, the reconstruction of shattered genomes (and, in all organisms, the processes of DNA damage repair) illustrate the coherent, holistic, end-directed, epigenetic performance of living narratives.Context: Dare We Call It Holism? 7 May 2019
Every organism, and indeed every significant biological entity from a cell on up, is a governing context that informs and disciplines its own parts, while also participating in larger contexts; and the governance is established by the interwoven ideas that make the contex...
The Sensitive, Muscular Cell 7 May 2019
The cytoskeleton and cellular membranes illustrate both the integral unity of the cell and also the temptation to isolate parts in our thought as ‘controlling’ causes. In reality, we discover in every cell the power of the whole to express itself through its parts.
