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

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posted on 2024-07-09, 16:12 authored by Arran GareArran Gare
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.

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PDF (Accepted manuscript)

ISSN

0079-6107

Journal title

Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology

Volume

113

Issue

1

Pagination

19 pp

Publisher

Elsevier

Copyright statement

Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. The accepted manuscript of a work that was accepted for publication in Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, [113, 1 (2013)] DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2013.03.002

Language

eng

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