Link Between Physical Sciences and Biology

¶ … Biology autonomous from physical sciences? Background of debate Biological science has undergone a time of progressive change in the last few decades. A distinctive element of this progress has been a continuous addition of fresh theoretical points-of-view and methods from physics and chemistry (the physical sciences). The most interesting fresh innovations in contemporary Biology are closely linked with how these new theories and methods are applied.

There is a unanimous consensus that a lot of the phenomena that used to occur naturally in the arena of biological science has been overridden by a science that is practically physical. The exact reference of the new expanded theories such as 'biophysics', 'biochemistry', and 'molecular biology' apparently point to new knowledge for treating the science of life on earth as chemical and physical principles (Hansen.

1969) What is Biology? In an attempt to answer this question, it is worth noting that biology is in actual sense composed of two distinct and separate fields' namely historical biology and mechanistic or functional biology. All activities related to the physiology of living organisms falls under functional biology, more so in relation to cellular processes particularly where the genome is concerned. It is noteworthy that all these cellular functions can find adequate explanation in purely mechanistically physical and chemical terms.

Whereas the other biological branch is historical, purely functional processes cannot be explained by knowledge of history much as this knowledge is important for explaining general aspects of the living world encompassed by time in historical dimensions when the theory of evolution is taken on board. The type of the more often asked questions also distinguishes these two fields of biology. In order to get the facts needed for in-depth analysis one must be certain to ask the 'what' question.

The most commonly asked questions in functional biology is, however, "how?" while in terms of biology of evolution the frequently asked question is "why" But the question is practically incomplete because even in evolutionary biology one occasionally asks "how" questions, for example how can you explain the multiplication of species? One must therefore take note of the essential differences between the two classes of biology in order to understand its remarkable nature.

Granted, some of the most distinctive differences between biology and the physical sciences is true for only of the branches, namely evolutionary biology (Mayr, 2004). How the debate of reductionism started? Up to the nineteenth and twentieth century, biology was practically a dead subject. Despite the fact that an enormous degree of factual knowledge of natural history, physiology, and anatomy was gathered in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was believed that the world of life during that period purely belonged to the medical realm.

However, this was only true for physiology, anatomy; and in some cases botany which to a large extent comprised of finding out plants that had medicinal values. Indeed this included important elements of natural history that in real sense was either regarded as a hobby or something that was in recognition of the contribution of natural theology. Lastly, when mechanics was recognized as an exemplary science, a new school of thought that organisms were essentially the same as inert matter was born (Mayr, 1997).

The logical conclusion that was drawn from this assumption was that the prime objective of science was to subjugate biology to the laws of physics and chemistry. But with the passage of time progress in biology made this theory null and void.

Biology gained a stronger foothold in the science sphere when vitslism and its sister mechanism were overwhelmed by the acceptance of the new theory of organicism in the twentieth century, this, despite the fact that many philosophers of science have not yet fully accepted the impact of this new paradigm (Mayr, 1997). Three very distinct views on the position of biology amongst the sciences could clearly be seen from the mid-twentieth century.

One extreme position held it that biology should not be regarded as a science because it is devoid of the universally accepted quantitative and structured law of a "true science," this in reference to physics. But on the other opposite end of the spectrum of thought, biology not only shares the qualities of a true science but it is different from physics in essential points which ranks it as an autonomous science just like physics.

In the continuum of these two opposing views a third preposition views biology as a "provincial science" due to the fact that its findings are ultimately reduced to the law of chemistry and physics; and that it is not universal (Mayr, 1997).

Is Biology an autonomous science? The question whether biology is an autonomous science or not can be paraphrased in two ways: Like chemistry and physics, is biology a genuine science? And does biology as a science share similar characteristics with chemistry and physics? John Moore's eight criteria for evaluating whether a given action deserves to be called a science can help us answer the first question.

According to him (Moore): (1) without resort to supernatural theories, the basis of science should be actual data collected in the field and taken to a laboratory for experimentation and observation. (2) Data must be gathered in response to questions and observations must be made to solidify or disparage guesses. (3) For any form of bias to be eliminated, objective methods should be applied. (4) There should be consistence between the observations made and the original hypotheses within a given conceptual framework.

(5) Every hypothesis must undergo tests and there should be competing hypothesis no agreement so that their ability to solve problems (validity) is compared. (6) Within the domain of a given science, generalizations ought to be universally accepted. Without recourse to supernatural factors, all peculiar occurrences must be explicable. (7) So that possibilities of errors are eliminated, a discovery or factor must be wholly accepted only after repeated confirmations by the investigators.

(8) A characteristic of science is a continuous refinement of scientific theories through replacement of incomplete or false theories and by finding solutions to hitherto confusing problems (Mayr, 1997). From the above criteria many people would rightly conclude that just like physics and chemistry, biology should also be treated as a genuine science. One question that still lingers is whether biology is actually a provincial science and therefore should not be treated the same as physical sciences.

The first time the term "provincial science" came into being, it was antonymous with the term "universal" in the sense that biology was concerned with localized and specific matter for which one could not impose universal laws. It was argued that the laws of physics had no limitations of space and time; that they remained as valid on earth as in the Andromeda galaxy.

But that in contrast, biology was provincial because all known forms of life existing after the Big Bang did so for only 3.8 billion years of the entire 10 billion years. Ronald Munson convincingly refuted this claim by demonstrating that none of the fundamental laws, principles or theories of biology are explicitly or implicitly tied down in their range and scope of application to a spatial region either in space or time. The world of life has immense peculiarities and so one can generalize about phenomena that are unique.

Although every ocean current has peculiar qualities, this does not preclude establishment of theories and laws about ocean currents (Mayr, 1997). We must question "what is universal" if we have to accept all the arguments that deny biology of the principals of universality. Since even non-living matter is believed to be in existence outside the earth, for any science dealing with non-living matter to be regarded as universal it must be applicable extra-terrestrially.

So far, life is only demonstrable on earth yet the same laws and principles similar to those of non-living objects are taken to be universal because they are given validity on earth which is the only place existence is known to occur. There is no point of denying the term "universal" for a theory that is true across the whole sphere where it is applicable (Mayr, 1997).

What is meant by describing biology as a provincial science is the fact that it is an outcrop of chemistry and physics and that in the final analysis the discoveries of biology can be tied to physical and chemical theories.

A proponent of the independence of Biology, by contrast, might postulate the following argument: various characteristics of interest to biologists will never be reduced to physiochemical laws, and besides, many attributes of the physical world examined by physicists are irrelevant to the study of life or any science outside physics, as a matter of argument. In this sense both biology and physics are provincial. There is no point of treating physics as superior simply because it was the fast structured science.

This historical accident does not confer on it more universality that it's younger cousin biology. Until it is accepted that science contains different facets, its unity cannot be realized for one, there is physics as well as biology. It would be foolhardy to reduce biology to scientific provinciality as compared to physics which is another provincial science or the other way round (Mayr, 1997).

Nearly all advocates of the unity of science movement during the late nineteenth or early twentieth century were more of philosophers than scientists and they totally disregarded the oneness of the sciences. This is much more applicable to the physical sciences like solid state physics, elementary particle physics, and classical mechanics, quantum physics, relativity theory, geophysics, oceanography, not to mention electromagnetism, geology and so on. This might exponentially increase when you consider the entire spectrum of life sciences.

During the last 70 or so years the futility of attempting to reduce all these domains to a single entity has been demonstrated time and again (Mayr, 1997). To substantiate and to establish the independence of biology has been very painfully slow. It has necessitated removing the accepted concepts of physicalism like determinism and essenrialism as well as certain metaphysical concepts proposed by some biologists whose intuition points to biology as a separate entity but still attribute it to metaphysical qualities like teleology or vitalism.

The war to refute the notion that biology is a separate science, even today, is focused on disapproving vitalism as if this was still an aspect of the conceptual framework of contemporary biology (Mayr, 1998). How reductionism of Biology is a failed maneuver? Questions as whether biology should be reduced to a physiochemistry has consistently cropped up in recent times especially due to the remarkable strides that have been made in some aspects of biology.

Studies at the molecular level in genetics has added to the establishment of the chemical formula in the structure of the hereditary material in deciphering the genetic code and in providing light into certain mechanisms of genetic action. Exceptional discoveries have also been realized in neurophysiology and other branches of biology. Some researchers argue that to understand all phenomena in biology in relation to physiochemical understanding is impossible now but a task for the near future.

It is therefore held that the only truly and worthy scientific research ascribed to biology is in contemporary jargon referred to as "molecular biology" which is a trial to find explanations for biological phenomena in relation to the underlying components of physiochemical processes (Ayala, 1968). It is simple to do away with two extreme thoughts which appear non-beneficial in the same degree.

On the extreme continuum are substantial vitalists who oppose the reducibility of biology to physical science because the phenomena of life are a result of non-material principles which are in many ways referred to as entelechy, vital force, radial energy, elan vital, and such like. A non-material principle will never be subjected to genuine observations of science nor prove scientific hypotheses that can be tested. At the other extreme of this continuum are those who hold the view that reducing biology to physiochemestry is presently possible.

At the present level of scientific progress various biological concepts like species, organ, cell, ecosystem species and so forth cannot be accepted in purely physiochemical terms. At the same time, there is no division of theories either in physics or chemistry from which any biological theory can logically be derived. This means that neither the condition of derivability nor that of connectability, which are two essential formal conditions for reduction, are convincing at the present level of progress of biological and physical knowledge (Ayala, 1968).

The recent literatures have introduced two intermediate positions. To begin with, a reductionist theory holds forth that although it is impossible to reduce biology to physics now, in principle this is possible. The factual reduction is made subject to more developments in either the physical or biological sciences or in one or both.

Again, some anti-reductionist researchers believe that in principle alone reduction is impossible due to the fact that organisms are not merely composed of molecules and atoms nor made up of tissues and organs that stand in mere outward relationship to each other. Organisms are supposed to be complete and must be considered as wholes and not as collections of parts that can be isolated (Ayala, 1968).

The belief that is it possible for the reduction of the concepts and principles of all other sciences, including biology, to the principles of physical sciences has apparently dominated both science itself and philosophy. Mayr believes such assumptions are futile moves. Attempts at reducing biological systems to a simple level of physiochemical processes have not succeeded because in the process of reduction these systems lost their surface or ordinary properties of biology.

Biological systems possess complex or special qualities sometimes known as emergent which cannot be assessed mainly on chemical or physical terms (Dieks, 2011). At the present stage of scientific knowledge it is true that reduction of biology to physiochemistry is not possible. And this makes it an empirically useless question to assume that this reduction will take place in the future. Most of the problems posed by biology cannot as yet be looked at from the molecular level (Ayala, 1968).

Evidences for Biological Phenomenon as unique from other sciences The uniqueness of organisms at the molecular level is due to their ability to information derived historically which is not the case with non-living objects. Maybe there was an interposing condition when life began, but during the last 3 billion years or more than that the distinction between inanimate and living organisms has gone full circle. All organisms have a genetic program that has evolved historically and which is coded in the nucleic DNA (or RNA in other viruses.

There is nothing nearing that in the inanimate world except in machines made by man (Mayr, 1998). Traditionally, this experiment has been the basic method of evaluation in the physical sciences and some thinker believe it is the only genuine scientific method. The function of comparative and experimental means in biology can be appreciated if one understands that biology is composed of two diverse field of study. The first is mainly functional biology or the biology of proximate causations, and the other is the biology of ultimate causations.

There is absolutely nothing in the physical sciences that is similar or nears the biology of ultimate causations. The thought that the evolution of radioactive decays or the galaxies is similar to biological processes is faulty. Evolution in galaxies was not variational but transformational evolution and radioactive decay influenced by physical laws is not a teleonomic process but a teleomatic process (Mayr, 1998). There are no non-living systems in the mesocosmos that nearly resemble the complexities of the biological systems of cells and macromolecules.

These systems have a wealth of properties that emerge due to the continual emergence of new sets of properties at every stage of integration. Every point of analysis adds to the accumulation of knowledge about these systems, even though strictly speaking, reduction is not possible. Biological systems are not closed and so the principle of entropy does not apply to them. Due to their complex nature, Biological systems possess capabilities such as replication, reproduction, metabolism, adaptability, growth, regulation and hierarchical organizations.

In the inanimate world nothing of that nature is in existence (Mayr, 2004). The conceptual framework of biology is very different from that of physical sciences and this can never be reduced to the same level. The functions that similar biological processes play in life of organisms such as gastrulation, meiosis and predation cannot find descriptions through references to chemical reaction or physical laws only although physiochemical theories are operant.

The larger processes described by these biological theories or concepts cannot merely be found outside the domain of the world of life. And so the same occurrence might entirely have different meanings in dissimilar conceptual domains. When a male animal is in courtship, for example, this could be described in the conceptual framework and language of physical sciences in terms of energy turn over, metabolic process, locomotion and so forth but is can also find description in the framework of reproductive and behavioral biology.

The last explanations and descriptions can never be reduced to the principles of the physical sciences. Such phenomena of biology like territory, migration, species, mimicry, competition, hibernation are part of the hundreds of instances of organismic phenomena for which a mainly physical description is inadequate at best, but mostly irrelevant and unfitting (Mayr, 1998).

Even researchers like Mainx and Ruse who refused to accept the autonomy of biology now accept that in so many ways it is different from the physical sciences, despite that they argue this differences are not major enough because as a science, biology still possesses similar logical structures as physical sciences and it is an empirical discipline.

Maybe the most concise means to characterize the peculiarly dissimilar nature of organisms is to give them a description as hierarchically organized systems function on the principles of programs of information acquired historically, which is a description that cannot be applied to any inert matter (Mayr, 1996). Conclusion The forgoing explanations of the unique qualities of biology as a science demonstrates why moves to reduce biological theories to physics have not succeeded.

Does this imply that science can achieve oneness? Absolutely not! The implication of this is mainly that such unity cannot be accomplished by reducing biology to physics. Importantly, such unification must be on a new basis. Mayr has put forward a formidable argument in support of the independence yet unified.