Newsgroup: it.scienza.biologia
Titolo: Cntro Darwin:Brian Goodwin

An Interview with Professor Brian Goodwin by Dr. David King. David King is a
molecular biologist and editor of GenEthics News.
David King:  What are your criticisms of the prevailing paradigms in
biology, particularly Darwinism?
Brian Goodwin:
My main criticism of Darwinism is that it fails in its initial objective,
which is to explain the origin of species. Now, let me explain exactly what
I mean by that.
I mean it fails to explain the emergence of organisms, the specific forms
during evolution like algae and ferns and flowering plants, corals,
starfish, crabs, fish,
birds. That sort of spectrum of organism, each of which is distinct from the
other. They don't blend with each other, they are distinct from each other.
Now the
problem is that in order to understand that the kind of distinct structure
and form we have to understand how organisms are actually generated, and
that means
understanding how starting with an egg or a bud, the organism goes through a
developmental process and ends up as a particular type of species with a
particular morphology (shape and features). So the whole problem then is to
try to understand the nature of that process. One of the fundamental issues
is
whether or not you can get more or less any kind of organism, or whether
there are constraints. Darwin turned biology into a historical science, and
in
Darwinism, species are simply accidents of history, they don't have any
inherent nature. They are just 'the way things happened to work out' and
there aren't
any particular constraints that mean it couldn't have all worked out very
differently. An example is the structure of the arm and the wings of birds.
There is
always only bone at the top of the arm, never two, even though two would be
very useful to birds, but it's never evolved. So it looks like this is
something that
simply cannot happen because there is an intrinsic constraint on that
process. Now there is plenty of evidence that that kind of constraint exists
through the
whole of biology. In other words, the reason why species are distinct is
because you have only got certain types of forms, that can actually be
generated by the
developmental process. That really begins to shift the emphasis with respect
to how we understand the different species and how they are related to each
other.
In order to get a really firm grip on this, we actually need a theory of the
whole organism and its transformation. Organisms are organized wholes.
That's why
they have these constraints. The sort of theory that you need to understand
morphogenesis involves understanding the components which organisms are
made.
You certainly need to know a lot about molecules, but you have to understand
how they are put together and what sort of dynamics is involved. Now this is
where these new sciences that are called the sciences of complexity come
into the picture, where you actually look at the dynamics of complex
systems, and see
how emergent order arises, in often very unexpected ways. This happens
because of what we call the relational order, the relationship between the
components.
It doesn't matter so much what the components are, what they are made of.
The really important thing is the way they interact, and that is what
determines the
type of order that is going to emerge. Now what I and my colleagues are
trying to do is to, in a sense, make a map between the pathways of
morphogenesis that
are available to species organized in a particular way, like algae or plants
or amphibians, and to map that onto taxonomy (classification of species). In
other
words, it's trying to make sense of what we see in evolution by having a
theory of morphogenesis (development of shape and form), and making a map
between morphogenesis and taxonomy. So it's turning biology into a rational
science rather than a historical science. There is no conflict. Everything
that
happens has a history, so in a sense all sciences have a historical
component, but physics of course also has a very strong rational tradition.
The whole point is
to try to understand why certain structures are necessary, and this is
exactly what we do in physics and the new biology. We are asking why has
this particular
structure emerged in the biological world and this makes biology much more
like physics than the historical science that we got from Darwin.
King:  How does your new model of biology incorporate genetics?
Goodwin:
A major problem is that in contemporary Darwinism, organisms are actually
reduced to genes and their products. Darwinism has given us a very good
theory of
inheritance in terms of a theory of the genes, but what it has done is to
sacrifice the whole organism, as a real entity, to this reductionism,
genetic reductionism.
That means that organisms have disappeared as real entities from biology,
and that, I think, this is a fundamental scientific error. There's another
aspect of this
problem which has to do with the way Darwinists explains embryonic
development. They say that there is a genetic program that determines the
development of
an organism. An organism wants to become a newt, say, or a sea urchin.
Because it has particular genes, they say, it undergoes a particular
embryonic
development and that is sufficient, in other words knowing the genes is
sufficient to understand the details of the embryonic development, and the
emergence of
a species with its characteristic form and behavior. That sounds, on the
face of it, plausible because we know that mutations actually cause
transformation of
morphology. Drosophila can have a mutation that transforms a two winged fly
to a four winged fly. Now that is a pretty major transformation, and a
single
gene can do it. So you might say that's the sort of thing that is involved
in evolution. Well, you see, the burden of proof then is on the
neo-Darwinists to
demonstrate exactly how the genes do this. They use the term genetic
programming, and it is a metaphor for what happens in a computer, but if you
ask them to
use a genetic program to generate an organism, they can't do it, and the
reasons are very simple. You need to know more than gene products in order
to explain
the emergence of shape and form in organisms. You actually need a theory, a
theory that involves physics, chemistry, forces and spatial organization.
You can
have complete details about genes and you are not going to be able to
explain how development occurs. So I think that is the fundamental test.
When Darwinists
say to me 'genes are enough', I say 'Show me.'
King:  What are the consequences of Darwinist reductionism?
Goodwin:
Let me pick up again this issue of the disappearance of organisms as real
entities. Because this really has quite profound consequences. I think that
this
precipitates a kind of crisis of understanding of living forms. It's an
extreme reductionism that makes it impossible for us to understand concepts
such as health.
Health refers to wholes, the dynamics of whole organisms. We currently
experience crises of health, of the environment, of the community. I think
they are all
related. They are not caused by biology by any means, but biology
contributes to these crises by failing to give us adequate conceptual
understanding of life and
wholes, of ecosystems, of the biosphere, and it's all because of genetic
reductionism. That's a pretty heavy charge, but let me just describe some of
the
consequences of genetic reductionism. Once you've got organisms reduced to
genes, then organisms have no inherent natures. Now, in our theory of
evolution, species are natural kinds, they are really like the elements, if
you like. I don't mean literally, but they have the same conceptual status,
gold has a
certain nature. We are arguing that, say, a sea urchin of a particular
species has a nature. Human beings have a nature. Now, in Darwinism, they
don't have a
nature, because they're historical individuals, which arise as a result of
accidents. All they have done is pass the survival test. The Darwinian
theory makes it
legitimate to shunt genes around from any one species to any other species:
since species don't have 'natures', we can manipulate them in any way and
create
new organisms that survive in our culture. So this is why you get people
saying that there is really no difference between the creation of transgenic
organisms,
that is moving genes across species boundaries, and creating new
combinations of genes by sexual recombination within species. They say that
is no different
to what is happening in evolution. Well, you know, in my book that's a bit
like saying there is no difference between radioactive decay, radioactivity
as you
find it naturally in Uranium, and using that for nuclear energy. Once you
scale something up to a particular level you are into a totally different
scene. Now, I
think that there are the same problems that arise with respect to creation
of transgenics, and the reason is because of the utter unpredictability of
the
consequences of transferring a gene from one species to another. Genes are
defined by context. Genes are not stable bits of information that can be
shunted
around and express themselves independently of context. Every gene depends
upon its context. If you change the context, you change the activity of the
gene.
There are particular cases where that doesn't appear to happen. You put the
human gene into bacteria and you get insulin out, but as you know, there is
a recent
case in the States where the insulin has actually modified and it's not
working properly. And then you have got the problem of genes transferring
from one
transgenic to a related species, resulting in the problem of ecological
meltdown, or ecological change that can be precipitated by the use of
transgenic species in
agriculture. I'm by no means against biotechnology. I just think that it is
something that we have to use with enormous caution in its application. We
need
stringent safety protocols. Now those are the issues of safety, and they are
very serious, because the rhetoric that goes with biotechnology is totally
at variance
with reality. The biotech companies don't want to face the consequences of
this radical unpredictability which comes from the intrinsic complexity of
organisms. But there is also this really thorny question of species as
natural kinds. And when you transfer genes of one type of organism to
another, what are
you doing to the nature of the species, the recipient species? Now I think
that's a very open question. I don't have a simple answer to this. I just
think that it's
again, something very serious. It raises ethical issues.
King:  How would those ethical questions look in the light of your
alternative model of biology?
Goodwin:
There is a particular consequence of the idea that species are 'natural
kinds' that, I think, is very important for a new type of science in
relation to the living
realm. It works like this. If you acknowledge that species are natural
kinds, so they have natures, then it becomes possible to consider procedures
whereby we
can understand those natures, that is we go through a process of qualitative
evaluation of the conditions under which those natures are being expressed,
and
cannot be expressed. Let me just clarify that in relation to some specific
examples. We know when our domestic animals are distressed and in pain, when
they
are happy and so on and so forth. In other words we have spontaneous
intuitive ways of evaluating the subjective state of domestic animals.
Anybody who has
an intimate relationship with an animal knows what its subjective states
are. Now I say know, they would claim to know, and it seems perfectly
legitimate, that
claim. But the whole question now is whether we can turn that into a science
of subjective states because that would then compliment the science of
objectivity
which is the mode of contemporary science. In other words what we would be
developing is a science of qualities, of qualitative evaluation of other
species,
and therefore a method of deciding when organisms are being denied the
opportunity to express their natures. And this is clearly extremely relevant
to the way
we treat not just domestic animals and farm animals, but the rest of living
nature. And it's that relationship that we need, in order to heal these
various crises of
the environment and of health and of community, because we've even lost the
concept of human nature. Human nature disappears as a concept from
neo-Darwinism, and so life become a set of parts, commodities that can be
shifted around. But the moment you recover this notion of nature, you are
into a
different world and you operate in a different way. Now this I think is a
pretty urgent development, developing a science of qualities, and it's
something we are
engaged in at Schumacher College. It has to be done with groups, because you
have to try to develop methods of qualitative assessment that are
intersubjective,
just in the same way that in conventional science the evaluation of what we
call reality is dependent upon intersubjective consensus. We come together
and carry
out these procedures, like experiments and observations and so on, and come
to an agreement,about what constitutes reality and what doesn't. And I think
we
can have a parallel procedure to that in a science of qualities. I think
that that would be a fundamental contribution to this issue of how we treat
other organisms
and at what point a transgenic would be losing its nature.
King:  How would the new science affect our social theories?
Goodwin:
Well, another consequence of this new view of species and evolution is it
does shift the metaphors that are used to understand evolutionary processes.
In
Darwinism, you know, the metaphors are of competition and conflict and
survival, and in Dawkins' writing it becomes embodied in the notion of
selfish genes.
Well, from the perspective of organisms as complex dynamic systems, with
natures and trying to understand the ecosystem from the point of view, what
you
find is that organisms are interacting with each other in all kinds of
different ways. They are as co-operative as they are competitive, and a lot
of the time they
are simply making a living. In other words, it's not this nature red in
tooth and claw, with fierce competition and the survivors coming away with
the spoils. In
fact, species extinction seems to be as much to do with the lottery which
comes from the dynamics of complex systems, as from anything else. The whole
metaphor of evolution, instead of being one of competition, conflict and
survival, becomes one of creativity and transformation. When you take on
that
perspective and bring that into society then you say, all right, why don't
we use those metaphors in our social system as well. The metaphors of just
making a
living, just getting by. Not getting profits into double figure percentages.
Not survival through serious competition, but making a living and sharing.
I'm not
being Utopian, I'm not saying we are going to share everything, because
there has to be a certain conflict and competition. But instead of making
that the
predominant mode, we say that's only one of the components of a vibrant
creative society. And the sciences of complexity are really taking on this
character of
illuminating what it means to be creative. This concept of life at the edge
of chaos. Now that is a pretty dramatic metaphor, but what it means is that
you
shouldn't have too much order. You shouldn't have too much chaos. Perhaps
you should be at the point where you can move backwards and forwards between
the two and actually be creatively responsive to circumstance. Now clearly,
that model is very attractive, but when you look at the dynamics of those
systems,
you find that it is not driven by competition.They have a complex dynamic
interaction and it's that which produces creativity. So the whole business
about
intellectual property rights and competition that we have in our society,
people justify them saying they happen in nature. That is not what happens
in nature at
all. Nature as we read it now is a much more complex, coherent and creative
type of process than the one we have in our social and economic system. So
we
can begin to contemplate the use of different metaphors and different
instantiations of these biological metaphors. You always have to be careful
with
metaphors. You can't say this happens in biology, therefore it should happen
in society. You have to examine it on its own merits. But I think that there
is a lot
to be said for a basic reevaluation of the metaphors we use in describing
evolution, economics and social change, that is arising out of the new
sciences.
.

 wrote in message
CYqD5.5167$N93.1...@news.infostrada.it...


 faccia ******...
normalmente mi sto zitto.
Ma tu hai riportato i 17Kb da buttare nel suddetto cesso aggiungendoci
solo due righe.
Se poi "penzi" che il server di albacom ci mette una marea di tempo a
scaricare .........
AleX
"E' un mondo difficile. Che vita intensa.
Felicita' a momenti, e futuro incerto"
Odio ICQ, se avete Msn messanger contattatemi

 solo due righe.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA, SONO *******!!!! scusate...:-(((

 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA, SONO *******!!!! scusate...:-(((
figurati


> particular morphology (shape and features). 
It looks that this man ignores all thne new knowledge about HOX
genes!!!  they are te same from drosophyla to us.... 
Ernesto