My last post elicited several interesting critical comments. The supposition behind these comments was that I didn’t know much, or maybe anything, about the workings of the cell, and that if I would only educate myself by reading a little about it, all my questions would be answered. To this I would say, first, that I actually have read a bit about microbiology, and while I’m no expert, I probably have an educated layman’s grasp of the subject. I do know, for instance, what a catalyst is, and I have no need to look it up (as one commenter helpfully recommended). But, second, the information supplied in books about microbiology does not address my questions at the level at which they were asked.
There is a great deal of valuable and fascinating data available to describe the biochemical processes constantly taking place within the cell. But as long as the discussion remains at the level of description, I’m afraid it will inevitably be somewhat superficial. As I said in one of my comments, it is like explaining the action of retrieving a file from a file cabinet by describing the muscular movements of the hand that opens the cabinet drawer and removes the document. While this explanation is correct as far as it goes, it doesn’t go far enough — because it omits the whole purpose that gives rise to the action in the first place. And of course it omits the intelligence, the consciousness, that makes the concept of purpose possible.
Looking through my books on biology, I found some interesting thoughts on this subject by molecular biologist Franklin M. Harold, in his book The Way of the Cell: Molecules, Organisms and the Order of Life (2001). In his opening chapter, Harold brings up a popular book on biology titled What Is Life?, written in 1944 by the famed quantum physicist Erwin Schroedinger. Harold goes on to say:
Schroedinger wrote at the beginning of an extraordinary era of biological science, a great eruption of knowledge that cast a brilliant light into the chemical and physical foundations of life…. By 1975, it was becoming a tedious but routine task to determine the primary structure of macromolecules…. The pathways by which the major biological molecules are produced and broken down had been worked out. Enzymes continued to challenge the chemical imagination, but how they ensure the high rate and precision of biochemical processes had in principle been clarified. In principle, though not yet in detail, biochemists had discovered how living organisms capture energy and harness it to the performance of work. But the single most spectacular accomplishment was the solution to … the nature of the gene. It led quickly to the discovery of the principles that govern the replication, transmission and expression of genetic information….
Can we say then, that the riddle of life has been read — or soon will be, pending only the clarification of a few outstanding details? Those who believe that the object of the quest is to discover the physical and chemical mechanisms that underlie universal biological processes may be inclined to nod assent. But anyone familiar with living creatures will protest that the compendium of molecules and mechanisms omits the very singularities that answer to one’s intuitive sense of what “life” means. surely, a satisfying reading of Schroedinger’s riddle should have something to say about cells…. And it should bear on the kind of observations with which biology has traditionally been concerned: morphology, structure serving function, goal-seeking behavior, reproduction, adaptation. It must, in short, take cognizance of organisms in all their complexity, uniqueness and diversity….
So, what is life? The question is as good as ever. Despite decades of spectacular advances, the essential nature of life continues to elude us. We know much and explain more, but one sometimes suspects that our capacity to explain has outstripped our understanding.
Near the end of the book, in Chapter 10, Harold returns to this distinction between explanation and understanding when he quotes another biologist, Erwin Chargaff:
Now one could say, at the risk of some superficiality, that there exist principally two types of scientists. The ones, and they are rare, wish to understand the world, to know nature; the others, far more frequent, wish to explain it. The first are searching for truth, often with the knowledge that they will not attain it; the second strive for plausibility, for the achievement of an intellectually consistent, and hence successful, view of the world.
Harold then proceeds:
Fifty years after Schroedinger wrote his little book, his challenge still hangs in the air. What is life? Having learned so much about molecules and mechanisms, structures and functions, physiology and ecology and ontology and phylogeny, why are we still at a loss for a satisfying answer?… The reason has much to do with the difference between explanation and understanding. We are quickly learning to explain the workings of the biological machinery and even how organisms came to be as we find them, but we have no persuasive answer to the question why life exists in the first place. Loren Eiseley, thirty years ago, was baffled by “the hunger of the elements to become life,” and we are not much wiser today. There is nothing in the textbooks of physics and chemistry to forbid a world that teams with bacteria and butterflies, but there is also nothing that would lead one to expect the world to be of this nature. The crux of the matter is that living organisms cannot be rationally and systematically deduced from the principles that generally do account for the properties of inanimate matter….
The reason that many thoughtful persons continue to find life perplexing, even mysterious, is that sharp division between the organic and inorganic spheres. The distinction turns on those characteristics that are universally associated with entities we designate as living, but essentially absent from nonliving ones: intricate organization and purposeful behavior that unfold over time, both on the individual level and that of the total assemblage. Here yawns a great chasm that all biological scientists recognize, but many are deeply reluctant to acknowledge.
There is clearly something special about living things that has not declared itself from beneath our vast heap of knowledge, and that seems to stand outside the circle of light that contemporary research strives to enlarge. What we lack is an understanding of the principles that ultimately make living organisms living, and in their absence we cannot hope to integrate the phenomenon of life into the familiar framework of physical law. I am not here to advocate a veiled vitalism, nor to sneak in a creator by the back door. But I do insist that until we have forged rational links between the several domains of science, our understanding of life will remain incomplete and even superficial. Until that impasse is overcome, we cannot refute philosophers, skeptics, religious believers and mystics who suspect that science is sweeping out of sight the very mystery that it purports to elucidate.
This is a profoundly honest and meaningful statement. My only disagreement is that I am by no means sure that the mystics et al. can be refuted; indeed, I strongly suspect they are in the right and that some form of “vitalism” or “a creator” is really required to make sense of life at the deepest level. Of course, this need not take the form of some occult doctrine or complicated theological construct. It may be as simple — and as fundamental — as acknowledging that intelligence, consciousness, Mind, is the basis for all physical phenomena.