Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2013 Sep;113(1):5-24.
doi: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2013.03.002. Epub 2013 Apr 2.

Overcoming the Newtonian paradigm: the unfinished project of theoretical biology from a Schellingian perspective

Arran Gare  1
Affiliations
Review

Overcoming the Newtonian paradigm: the unfinished project of theoretical biology from a Schellingian perspective

Arran Gare. Prog Biophys Mol Biol. 2013 Sep.

Abstract

Defending Robert Rosen's claim that in every confrontation between physics and biology it is physics that has always had to give ground, it is shown that many of the most important advances in mathematics and physics over the last two centuries have followed from Schelling's demand for a new physics that could make the emergence of life intelligible. Consequently, while reductionism prevails in biology, many biophysicists are resolutely anti-reductionist. This history is used to identify and defend a fragmented but progressive tradition of anti-reductionist biomathematics. It is shown that the mathematico-physico-chemical morphology research program, the biosemiotics movement, and the relational biology of Rosen, although they have developed independently of each other, are built on and advance this anti-reductionist tradition of thought. It is suggested that understanding this history and its relationship to the broader history of post-Newtonian science could provide guidance for and justify both the integration of these strands and radically new work in post-reductionist biomathematics.

Keywords: Biosemiotics; Emergence; Epigenesis; Reductionism; Relational biology; Teleology.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

LinkOut - more resources