(1904-1991)
Walter Elsasser
Walter Elsasser was a Professor of Geophysics at Princeton University. In 1975 he became an adjunct Professor of Geophysics at Johns Hopkins University.
He proposed the wave-like diffraction of electron particles by a crystal. The subsequent Davisson–Germer experiment showing this effect led to his Nobel Prize in Physics.
He also proposed the existence of "biotonic" laws, principles of biology which are not contained in the principles of physics. Basic to Elsasser's biological thought is the notion of the great
complexity of the cell. Elsasser thought an investigation of a causative chain of events in a biological system will reach a "terminal point", where the number of possible inputs into the chain will overwhelm the capacity of the scientist to make predictions, even with the most powerful computers. This is an important part of Elsasser's legacy to both Complex Systems biology and Relational Biology.
Jacques Monod was very critical of Elsasser's "biotonic laws." He wrote...
The strange properties (of organisms) are doubtless not at odds with
physics · but the physical forces and chemical interactions brought to light by
the study of nonliving systems do not fully account for them. Hence it must
be realized that over and above physical principles and adding themselves
thereto, others are operative in living matter, but not in non-living systems
where, consequently, these electively vital principles could not be discovered.
It is these principles or, to borrow from Elsasser's terminology,
these "biotonic laws" that must be elucidated. The least one can say
is that the arguments of these physicists is oddly lacking in strictness and
solidity.
Chance and Necessity, p, p. 27-28
Information philosophy sees the difference between biological evolution and cosmic physical evolution as explained by the
role of information.
Purely physical objects like planets, stars, and galaxies are
passive information structures, entirely controlled by fundamental physical forces - the strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism, and gravitation, plus short-range quantum cooperative effects. These objects do not control themselves. They are not acting. They are acted upon.
Living things, you and I, are active dynamic growing information structures, forms through which matter and energy continuously flow. And the communication of biological information controls those flows! To be sure, the forces acting between messenger RNA and their target amino acids are electromagnetic and quantum, but their location sequence in a forming polypeptide chain is determined by the complementary information in the long transfer RNA copied from the DNA in the cell nucleus.
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