Abstract

The problem with reductionism in biology is not the reduction, but the implicit attitude of determinism that usually accompanies it. Methodological reductionism is supported by deterministic beliefs, but making such a connection is problematic when it is based on an idea of determinism as fixed predictability. Conflating determinism with predictability gives rise to inaccurate models that overlook the dynamic complexity of our world, as well as ignore our epistemic limitations when we try to model it. Furthermore, the assumption of a strictly deterministic framework is unnecessarily hindering to biology. By removing the dogma of determinism, biological methods, including reductive methods, can be expanded to include stochastic models and probabilistic interpretations. Thus, the dogma of reductionism can be saved once its ties with determinism are severed. In this paper, I analyze two problems that have faced molecular biology for the last 50 years—protein folding and cancer. Both cases demonstrate the long influence of reductionism and determinism on molecular biology, as well as how abandoning determinism has opened the door to more probabilistic and unconstrained reductive methods in biology.

Highlights

  • Quine (1951), modern biology has been conditioned in large part by two dogmas: (1) One is reductionism—broadly understood as a belief that biological entities and processes correspond to some simpler, lower level—where “the reductive method par excellence is the ‘dissection of biological systems into their constituent parts’ (Van Regenmortel 2004, 1016)” (Kaiser 2015, 74); (2) The other is determinism—broadly understood as the necessity of fixed future states—where causal determinism is the idea that “given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law” (Hoefer 2016)

  • The main point of this paper is to argue that this “intimate connection” between reductionism and determinism is restrictive and problematic for biological research

  • My argument in this paper is threefold: (a) reductionism and determinism motivate much research in biology, especially molecular biology; (b) there is an intimate connection between reductionism and determinism; and (c) this connection is problematic because it is based on a misunderstanding of determinism and deterministic systems

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Summary

Introduction

My argument in this paper is threefold: (a) reductionism and determinism motivate much research in biology, especially molecular biology; (b) there is an intimate connection between reductionism and determinism (i.e., there is a natural association between the reductive method and a deterministic framework); and (c) this connection is problematic because it is based on a misunderstanding of determinism and deterministic systems To support these points, the bulk of this paper is spent analyzing two problems that have faced molecular biology for the last 50 years—protein folding and cancer. Before delving into such biological detail, I will provide some additional explanation regarding points (b) and (c) of my argument in the two subsections, respectively

Reductionism and Determinism
Determinism and Predictability
Protein Folding and Disordered Proteins
Intrinsically Disordered Proteins
Cancer Evolution and Chromosomal Instability
Chromosomal Instability
Biology without Determinism
Findings
Literature cited
Full Text
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