Chance and Necessity - Jacques Monod II

The curve showing the variation of activity as dependent upon concentration of an effector (including the substrate) is almost always S-shaped. In other words the effect of the ligand at first increases faster than its concentration. This behaviour is the more remarkable in that it appears to be characteristic of allosteric enzymes.In ordinary "classic" enzymes, on the contrary, the effect increases more slowly than the concentration p68.

Foundation of the S-systems idea of Voit.

 For example: in state R the protein will be able to recognize and therefore to bind compound alpha at one site (but not compound beta), whereas in state T it will recognize and bind compound beta but not alpha. It follows that either compound will have the effect of stabilizing the protein in this or that of its two states, R or T, at the expense of the other; and that alpha and beta will be mutually antagonistic, since their respective interactions with the protein are mutually exclusive p70.

This might be a way of getting an XOR relationship.

There is no chemically necessary relationship between the fact that beta-galactosidase hydrolyzes beta-galatosides, and the fact that its biosynthesis is induced by the same compounds. Physiologically useful or "rational" this relationship is chemically arbitrary - "gratuitous" one might say. This fundamental concept of gratuity i.e. the independence, chemically speaking, between the function itself and the nature of the chemical systems controlling it  - applies to allosteric enzymes... enabling an interaction, positive or negative, to come about between compounds without chemical affinity, and thereby eventually subordinating any reaction to the intervention of compounds that are chemically foreign and indifferent to this reaction. p77.

This implies the generation of a hierarchy of levels of cybernetic control. It also suggests lots of possibilities for co-evolution of processes and regulation.

only failure awaits attempts to reduce the properties of a very complex organisation to the "sum" of the properties of its parts. A most foolish and wrongheaded quarrel it is, merely testifying to the "holists" profound misappreciation of scientific method and of the crucial role analysis plays in it. If a Martian engineer were trying to understand one of our earthling computers, how far could he conceivably get were he, on principle, to refuse to dissect the basic electronic components which in the machine execute the operations of propositional algebra? If any one branch of molecular biology illustrates better than others the sterility of holist theses as against the cogency of analytical method, it is indeed the study of these microscopic cybernetic systems.. p 79.

Monod is partly right and partly wrong the point is that the arrangement of the microscopic components is not embedded in the components themselves.

And even though these analyses are not yet near to furnishing us with a complete description of the cybernetic system of the simplest cell, they tell us that, without exception, all the activities that contribute to the growth and multiplication of that cell are interconnected and intercontrolled directly or otherwise. On such a basis, but not that of a vague "general theory of systems," does it become possible for us to grasp in what very real sense the organism does effectively transcend physical laws - even while obeying them - this achieving at once the pursuit and fulfilment of its own purpose.   

This is just an attack on Bertalanffy who is referenced for General Systems Theory. It is not actually presenting any kind of alternative framework and it is also contradictory.

Chance and Necessity - Jacques Monod I

In the book he makes arguments for distinguishing signs of life from crystalline growth and other ways of creating order. A simpler approach is that of Lotka who said it was just a matter of definition and avoided the question all together. This is based on the idea of Paley and the watch-maker, showing that there must be design,

The cornerstone of the scientific method is the postulate that nature is objective. In other words, the systematic denial that "true" knowledge can be got at by interpreting phenomena in terms of final causes - that is to say, of "purpose" ...

Objectivity nevertheless obliges us to recognize the telenomic character of living organisms, to admit that in their structure and performance they act projectively - realize and pursue a purpose. p21-22.

Is this true? Do we need purpose? It is indirect because selection requires the purpose of being able to deal with the environment.

that invariance necessarily precedes teleonomy. Or, to be more explicit the Darwinian idea that the initial appearance, evolution, and steady refinement of ever more teleonomic structures are due to perturbations occurring in a structure which already possesses the property of invariance - hence is capable of preserving the effects of chance and thereby submitting them to the play of natural selection. p23-24.

This is the point that the genome is separate and "invariant" as in it allows the random changes to be passed between generations. But this also echoes the ideas of Claude Bernard and that complex organisms carry their environment around with them and so are more robust to environmental changes. He accuses Elsasser and Polanyi of scientific vitalism which is unfair.Teilhard de Chardin is intellectually spineless (this is the use of the personal fallacy - attack the person and not the idea). Teilhard has evolution act on all components not just living things. This agrees with Lotka's definition of evolution but there is a genotype in living things.

Living things are robust, plastic and evolvable. So they have a balance between  a defined shape/function and flexibility. They respond to the environment, yet they are separable pools of information. They are homeostatic but not closed.

We know however (contrary to what Laplace believed, and after him the science and "materialist" philosophy of the 19th century) that these predictions could be no more than statistical.
In a general manner the theory would anticipate the existence, the properties, the interrelations of  certain classes of objects or events, but would obviously not be able to foresee the existence or the distinctive character of any particular object or event. p43.

This is the point about biology being a phenomenological subject and that it might not have an fundamental predictive laws.

Plainly enough, the functional coherence of so complex a chemical machine, which is autonomous as well calls for a cybernetic system governing and controlling the chemical activity at numerous points. p45.

This specificity is two-fold:

1. Each enzyme catalyses but one type of reaction.
2. Among the sometimes very numerous compounds in the organism susceptible of undergoing that type of reaction, the enzyme, as a general rule, is active in regard to only one.
   

Nonsense - they are not so specific and there is a lot of kinetic control.

Plasticity in Darwin's Origin of the Species 6th Edition

Historical Sketch

Plasticity xv - He extends the same view to animals. The Dean {Hon. and Rev. W Herbert} believes that single species of each genus were created in an originally highly plastic condition, and that these have produced, chiefly by intercrossing, but likewise by variation, all our existing species.

Finality error xix - He {M Naudin} believes, like Dean Herbert, that species, when nascent , were more plastic than at present. He lays weight on what he calls the principle of finality.

The Origin

9 Any variation which is not inherited is unimportant for us. But the number and diversity of inheritable deviations of structure, both those of slight and those of considerable physiological importance, are endless.

22 The great power of this principle of selection is not hypothetical. It is certain that several of our eminent breeders have, even within a single lifetime, modified to a large extent their breeds of cattle and sheep.

62 Under domestication, it may truly be said that the whole organism becomes in some degee plastic.

106 The direct action of changed conditions leads to definite or indefinite results. In the later case the organism seems to become plastic and we have much fluctuating variability.

385 He {E Ray Lankester} proposes to call the structures which resemble each other in distinct animals, owing to their descent from a common progenitor with subsequence modifications homogeneous; and the resemblances which cannot this be accounted for, he proposes to call homoplastic.

Glossary 438 Plastic - Readilly capable of change.

The Luddite connection to Frank Herbert's Dune

In the Dune universe thinking machines - artificial intelligence is banned after the Butlerian jihad. Herbert was thinking of the 19th century philosopher and technophobe Luddite Samuel Butler who wrote the book Erewhon.

Schopenhauer Quote

If your abilities are mediocre, modesty is an honesty, but if you possess great talents it is hypocrisy - quoted in the Private Lives of Albert Einsten.

The Once and Future King

There would be a day - there must be a day - when he would come back to Gramarye with a new Round Table which had no corners, just as the world had none - a table without boundaries between the nations who would sit to feast there. The hope of making it would lie in culture. If people could be persuaded to read and write, not just to eat and make love, there was still a chance they might come to reason.

The Meaning of the 21st Century II

Chapter 14 A perfect storm
Small scale entrepreneurs in developing countries - storm of innovation. Amory Lovins Factor 4 double wealth and half resource use. We can do this now. We actually need to think of factor 10 this is for the innovation. Says this requires sweeping away government regulations - very right-wing capitalist.

Chapter 15 The vital role of corporations
I agree that corporations and business can do far more for a country than aid and charity, but it depends on the ethics and scruples of the companies. We need more Cadbury's and less Enrons. We need companies that see real costs and keep real balance sheets.

Chapters 16 and 17 Cultures crucible and The Counter-terorist world
Nonsense - he overplays the conflicts between religions and cultures. In the end we all want certain freedoms and liberal democracies but these do not specify Gods and cultures. The disputes are caused by anachronisms that are dying and having their last roll of the dice. In the 1580s protestants went on suicide missions against catholic priests.