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How Can We Use Engineering to Elucidate Biology?

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Engineering is, by definition, a teleological effort. Things are done in order that something else may happen. I have wondered how biology might be improved by taking ideas, practices, and methodologies from engineering and applying them to biology.

Any ideas?

NOTE – I accidentally used the word “approved” rather than “improved” in the post. This is fixed. Sorry for the confusion.

Comments
I had no idea this thread was still active. I'm skipping most of this, but just wanted to point out that just because Bejan thinks that his concept of flow is non-teleological doesn't mean that it is. From what (little) I know about it, it looks like an intertwining of design patterns in physics and life. Unless he is purporting a *physical* *basis* for his constructal law, it actually points to being a design pattern instead of a product of physics, which makes it teleological rather than non-teleological.johnnyb
September 18, 2012
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As previous discussion has shown, Gregory is impervious to reason, and trolls have an unending appetite...Optimus
September 17, 2012
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'Did nature design itself? The point being science says that nature had a beginning and nature cannot account for that beginning.' Joe, that's reminiscent of Planck's observation: 'Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.' But Science has settled possibly the penultimate mystery of nature, as you indicate, i.e. its origination, and the animists and chancers are still in denial as to one of its primordial implications: we are allowed by the Author of the Big Bang to know what we are allowed to know, and no more. Here is an interesting law, I have observed (sounding like Qoleth, which is really too presumptuous): 'The aggregate value of the animists' and chancers' promissory notes, is always in inverse proportion to their volume.' The more ham-strung they become, the more volubly they trumpet their follies. Until, finally, the game-changer.... the Multiverse! Exposed in all their riotous, Tellytubbie-toddler folly. In another connection: 'The instantiation of ‘design’ is the Creation. It is the Creation that is teleological, not the ‘design.’ The Creation fulfills the ‘design,’ but the ‘design’ cannot be ‘scientifically’ proven as ‘teleological’ because, oh look, it’s a capital-’C’ for Creation! No. Gregory. Utilisation of a design might or might not be purposed, but a design, in itself, in principle, without substantiation, virtually defines teleology. This is an a priori truth implicit in the very definition, in the very meaning of the word, the very language we use. In itself, 'design' is solely a process of ratiocination, but nevertheless, a process to arrive at a specific end, an intellectual goal. That is axiomatic. Please get it out of your head that 'scientific proof' is the ultimate criterion of intellectual merit. It's a very lowly hand-maiden to other intellectual fields. Christian theology is, indeed the Queen of the Sciences, and yet it knows nothing in comparison to the whole truth - which is simply humanly unknowable.Axel
September 17, 2012
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UD folks, view this exchange: “what you are against is not merely calling ID scientific, but rational inferences to a designer, period” – Timaeus Human beings are ‘designers.’ What more ‘rational inference’ do you expect me to offer than that?! Rational, intuitive, sensory, ‘inference’ – call it whatever you like. - Gregory Every day I study and explore designers, designing processes and designed (cf. instantiated, actualised) systems, structures and institutions, Timaeus. Surely I am not ‘against’ them/us! - Gregory This answer is a studied and deliberate evasion. Gregory knows from the context of the discussion (see his 2nd- and 3rd-last paragraphs of 35, and my reference to Barr in 37) that I was speaking of inferences to a designer *of nature*. And of course he does not infer a designer *of nature*. Gregory makes out that he believes in a designer, and is only against the idea that the designer's existence can be proved "scientifically." But he has shown no indication that he believes that a designer can be inferred philosophically, either. If he believes that, why hasn't he said so in the past 4 or more years of internet debating with ID people? So I deduce that he does not think the existence of a designer (of nature, Gregory!) can be inferred at all. So on what grounds does he believe that a designer exists? Will he say, because of the Bible? Or perhaps, because of the Church? So then is he a pure fideist? Reason can teach us *nothing* of the existence and nature of God? We would know nothing except for revelation? If so, no wonder he clashes with ID people, and so often sides with TEs against them. I wonder if his newfound enthusiasm Bejan believes that a designer of nature exists on *any* grounds, including even revelation. I note in passing that Gregory has failed to answer my question: how is "flow" a teleological concept? Apparently, Bejan says it is, so it is. No argument or explanation is necessary.Timaeus
September 17, 2012
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Gregory:
Human beings are ‘designers.’
Why? Is it because of the Constructal Law, or is there some other reason humans are designers? Do we design because we just can't help it? What about our designs themselves, are they also designers? Don't they also follow the Constructal Law? Are automobiles and software programs also designers?Mung
September 17, 2012
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I have a propensity to purchase design-related books. Bejan's was one that I passed on. After reading some of the reviews one has to wonder if even Gregory has read it or is just blinded by the idea.Mung
September 17, 2012
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@johnnyb
Engineering is, by definition, a teleological effort. Things are done in order that something else may happen.
But the ideas, practices, and methodologies of engineering neither assume nor conclude that life or the cosmos are engineered. In this, engineering is like science.
I have wondered how biology might be improved by taking ideas, practices, and methodologies from engineering and applying them to biology.
Engineers already bring their expertise to the fields of Systems Biology and Biological Systems Engineering (to name two.) Was there something else you were looking for?Freelurker_
September 17, 2012
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"what you are against is not merely calling ID scientific, but rational inferences to a designer, period" - Timaeus Human beings are 'designers.' What more 'rational inference' do you expect me to offer than that?! Rational, intuitive, sensory, 'inference' - call it whatever you like. Every day I study and explore designers, designing processes and designed (cf. instantiated, actualised) systems, structures and institutions, Timaeus. Surely I am not 'against' them/us! How about 'social implications,' not just 'philosophical implications'? This shows why Human Extension is more powerful than Intelligent Design; it actually speaks directly of and with 'designers,' it doesn't merely posit that (a) designer(s) must exist by implication. Human Extension at UD You might want to check out the link above in #4, Timaeus. Now at least you've heard of a person writing about 'design in nature' without reference to a 'designer of nature,' which Bejan says is a religious question, not a scientific one. Bejan's shadow is now cast over the IDM with his Constructal Law, claiming to synthesize physics, engineering and biology in a design-flow-evolution (natural) combination that rivals your teleology-intelligence-design (supernatural) package. Again, I wonder what johnnyb, thread author thinks about it.Gregory
September 17, 2012
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Gregory:
Then you’d better be ready to face Adrian Bejan. His ‘design in nature’ does not involve or imply a ‘designer.’
I am more than ready to face Bejan. I will force him to face the fact that nature couldn't have designed itself.Joe
September 17, 2012
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Gregory: First of all, I've never "dismissed" Bejan. I've never even heard of him. And I don't "dismiss" anyone until I have heard what they have to say. Second, how is "flow" a teleological concept? A river "flows" to the sea, but it does not follow that someone designed it to flow that way. If we accept the view of the materialists, continents uplifted due to mechanical necessities, and then wherever the softer rock was, the rivers carved their channels downward. No teleology there at all. I suspect you are using "teleology" in a very broad and loose way, not the way it has been used by philosophers, theologians and historians of ideas for a couple of centuries now. Of course, if you change the definition of a word, it can mean something new. But that proves nothing about whether or not nature was designed by an intelligent being. So if I change the meaning of "teleology" so that it encompasses any regular or lawlike behavior in nature (as some of the disciples of the Thomist Edward Feser do, when they say that an apple's falling is teleological), then of course we can speak of natural teleology. And if any arrangement of matter in which natural laws have blindly produced a structure which is functional can be thought of as "designed," then of course there is plenty of "design" in nature. But this is playing with words, and can produce nothing but confusion. "Teleology" ought to be restricted to refer to end-directed behavior, and therefore it is inevitably bound up with the notion of an intelligence which projects the ends, and which embodies those ends in a design. Teleology-intelligence-design are a package deal, which one must accept or reject whole. One can't buy just part of the lot. I'm not concerned with how many awards in engineering Bejan has won, or how decorated he is. If he thinks there can be design without a designer, he is misusing the English language -- in fact, misusing every language. I have great respect for the mathematical and inventive intelligence of engineers, and I know a good number of them very well, but I have to say that, generally speaking, verbal skills are not their strong point, and I don't intend to take my English usage from them. They should defer to well-established usage of words, rather than twist words into new meanings. Or, if they find no existing word appropriate, they can always coin a new one, to avoid misleading associations with old terms that don't mean exactly the same thing. I'm aware that you don't regard design inferences as scientific, Gregory. But that's plainly an excuse, since you have never endorsed the more nuanced view of, say, Barr, that while design inferences aren't scientific in the narrow sense, they can still be rational and perhaps even demonstrative, if the arena is philosophical implications of scientific discoveries. So what you are against is not merely calling ID scientific, but rational inferences to a designer, period.Timaeus
September 17, 2012
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You are surely not against that, are you UB? Indeed, you are also against evolutionism, are you not?
It principle, Gregory. You take your cues from issues like personalities, academic status, notoriety, etc. I take my cues from evidence. You argue like your'e writing a soap opera, or spending the day planning a cheese party for someone you're trying to impress. I doubt that we will be working alongside each other. cheerzUpright BiPed
September 17, 2012
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"It’s your lack of trust in the power of reason that makes it impossible for you to be an ID proponent." That's one of the funniest and most ridiculous things I've heard in a long time! "Design without a designer is a contradiction in terms." Then you'd better be ready to face Adrian Bejan. His 'design in nature' does not involve or imply a 'designer.' And he is more decorated and productively active in scholarship with results than pretty much the Top-7 ID leaders put together! And it's not as if most Americans don't value immigrants who achieve on a global scale. As a social scientist, for me and my colleagues, obviously a 'human-made thing/design' implies' a 'human maker/designer.' But for Origins of Life (OoL) - Category Switch - NO ONE of us has "uniform and repeated experience" (Meyer, borrowed from Thaxton) of that supposed TYPE of 'design.' Thus, ID quite obviously tries to bank on the old-as-human 'argument from/to design' as religious apologetics. That's one reason Human Extension is more powerful and broader than Intelligent Design - it is obvious to people that Human Extension means we can study extension(s) (X-marks the spot!) and the person who chooses to extend them-self in the real and experiential world. Every single person reading this has experience of Human Extension (and Intension) in their life, even this very day! "All language of design implies teleology...no one designs without an aim or end." That is false. But 'designist' ideology disallows one to imagine how. Bejan's Design-FLOW combination and his Constructual Law are more powerful than Intelligent Design theory wrt teleology, while they openly embrace both evolutionary theory (which many IDists don't) and emergentism, based on a general systems approach. As for me, I just don't think 'design in nature' can be 'scientifically' proven. What are you going to do, sue me for that? Many, many other people, both religious and non-religious, agree with this position and simply think ID is wrong to posit 'scientificity' as it generally does. While 'design in nature' is taken as a presupposition, both in Bejan and in the IDM, most TEs/ECs, i.e. the vast majority of Abrahamic believers in the world simmply say 'science can't prove that'. The 'revolutionary' movement behind ID says: 'yes, science *can* prove that (by implication a transcendant designer exists).' Bejan simply says, that isn't part of the proper topic of 'design in nature'. Obviously johnnyb already is interested in (or at least aware of) Bejan or he wouldn't have included a presentation on Bejan's 'design in nature' at his recent conference on Engineering and Metaphysics. How much further are you folks willing to go?Gregory
September 17, 2012
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UB - 'fetish' and 'fixation'. I'm not fetished with new atheists at all, like Timaeus obviously is. The IDM cites new atheists much, much, much more than it cites (non-IDM) 'design theorists.' Doesn't that seem strange to you? Here's Bejan, a 'design in nature' theorist using an inherently teleological concept - FLOW. What has the IDM/UD done to acknowledge or engage him? He was dismissed in his only appearance at UD. It is true that I am 'fixated' (my closest friends, colleagues and family know this well) on the 'creative destruction of evolutionism,' as I recently wrote at BioLogos. You are surely not against that, are you UB? Indeed, you are also against evolutionism, are you not? My guess is that you would actually support my focussed and concentrated opposition to evolutionism, but simply don't want to say so to a NEO-ID proponent.Gregory
September 17, 2012
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Gregory: You asked: "Are there *any* sciences that are by definition ‘non-teleological’? Please let me know of what you consider (a) ‘non-teleological’ field(s), according to your definition of ‘teleology’ and ‘science,’ ..." And I answered, in my first paragraph. I answered, "No," and I explained why. Now you complain that "you've heard all of that before." Well, if you already heard the answer to your question before, why did you ask your question again, and waste everyone's time? Would you ask, "What is 2 + 2?" and then, when someone answered, "4", complain that you had "heard all of that before"? It's a rather boorish response to someone who has answered your question in good faith. I didn't respond to your summary of Adrian Bejan, that's true. I'm not required to address every point raised by everyone who posts here, or I'd spend my whole life here. I chose to reply to only *one* part of your post. And, given that you frequently choose to respond to only one part of a multi-point post (or sometimes not to respond at all), you're in no position to complain about not getting a full answer. As for your speculation on why I didn't address Adrian Bejan, it is gratuitous, and also false, since I had no such motivation in mind. (You sociologists are always imputing motivations to people. That's why it is so much harder to talk to a sociologist than to talk to a philosopher. Generally false and always irrelevant imputations of motivation constantly get in the way of discussing the validity of claims.) But if you want to know the real reason I was silent on Bejan, it's that I haven't read Bejan, and don't believe in offering opinions on writers I haven't read. All language of design implies teleology. Telos is the Greek word for "aim" or "end," and no one designs without an aim or end. If nature is designed, then teleological language is appropriate to it. The fact that the design initially exists only in the mind of the designer does not change that. As for your remark about sometimes unrealized human designs, such designs are irrelevant to the discussion, since we are talking about living nature, which is real, and in front of us. It's therefore either a realized design, or the result of a series of unplanned events. You seem to prefer not to commit yourself on that question; or if you do, on rare occasions, give an answer, it seems to be the TE answer -- you believe in design in nature due to faith, not due to reason. It's your lack of trust in the power of reason that makes it impossible for you to be an ID proponent. Design without a designer is a contradiction in terms. I don't need to read Bejan to know that. As for whether the word "telos" or the English derivative "teleology" can be used sensibly without reference to a designer, there is debate about that among philosophers, especially since Aristotle does so, but Aristotle's use of design language is certainly problematic, as Sedley's careful study of Greek ideas of creation shows. Some of the biologists have been more careful. The two or three of them that are capable of a degree of philosophical thought (Gaylord Simpson, Monod, etc.) have coined or expounded upon the word "teleonomic" to avoid using "teleological." (They are honest enough to admit that there is no real "design" without a designer.) You can find discussions of this term in their books. Does Bejan use "teleological" or "teleonomic"? My "fetish" with Dawkins and his friends will be overcome when the field of evolutionary biology repudiates neo-Darwinism, and openly acknowledges that it cannot exclude the possibility of real design in living systems, because design is no mere theological gloss (as the TEs believe) but has real and indispensable explanatory power.Timaeus
September 17, 2012
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Gregory, Did nature design itself? The point being science says that nature had a beginning and nature cannot account for that beginning.Joe
September 17, 2012
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Gregory, you talking about someone having a fixation is truly rich. Freekn hilarious.Upright BiPed
September 17, 2012
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I've heard all of that before, Timaeus. Not a single thing you said was new or original. It's simple regurgitation from others. But you didn't address Adrian Bejan's engineering-physics view of 'design in nature,' which claims relevance in biology. Perhaps that's because his 'naturalistic design in nature' contradicts the ID 'design in nature' that is extra-naturalistic (or as Stephen Barr insists, inevitably supernaturalistic by implication). "the question is whether or not the origin of living things and living systems is best understood teleologically, i.e., as an outcome foreseen and engineered by a planning intellect." If "the origin of living things and living systems" EXTENDS from an Intellect (which most people call God, except for ID people when they speak 'technical-scientifically'), then it is teleological. Extension is an inherently teleological concept. I have no idea how one would test (for) the INTELLECTUAL EXTENSION of the origin of life using natural-physical scientific methods currently available to us today. That's up to the IDM to 'prove' if it desires to try. 'Design,' otoh, is not a teleological concept. Why? Because as Timaeus has admitted at UD, 'design' is just 'in the mind/Mind.' It is an abstract, disembodied, detached Concept. One can 'design' and not build; one can design and have that design never see the light of day; one can design and nobody might ever know about it. One can 'design' in their home closet wearing socks on their head and nothing else...and humanity would benefit not an ounce or gram from it. The instantiation of 'design' is the Creation. It is the Creation that is teleological, not the 'design.' The Creation fulfills the 'design,' but the 'design' cannot be 'scientifically' proven as 'teleological' because, oh look, it's a capital-'C' for Creation! On the human scale, as with every science as a human activity, it is the creators who are courageous; the 'designers' who are not stuck in their own mind. The designers, well, we *CAN* talk about their 'design processes,' just as actual engineers, programmers, artists, etc. regularly talk about 'designing'. But of course, that's not Intelligent Design theory; that's pre-, non- or post-IDM 'design theory,' that's NEO-ID that is (potentially) meaningful in the way johnnyb is asking engineers (i.e. designers+) to contribute to biology. So, back to Adrian Bejan, an engineer who doesn't believe in Creation, doesn't believe in a 'designer' of the universe (calling that a 'fantasy'), but nevertheless believes in 'design in nature' using engineer's eyes. Like EXTENSION, Bejan's chosen concept of FLOW is also an inherently teleological concept (though in psychology, this is a major debate), it implies direction, which makes it much more powerful than 'design' on the topic of teleology. FLOW combined with NATURAL DESIGN is an original combination suited for what johnnyb is requesting in this thread, not a backwards Paleyan-Wallacean (19th c.) ideology newly festished on (reactive to) Dawkins, Dennett, S. Harris, P.Z. Meyers and other new atheists, that merely pretends to be 'teleological,' but really isn't. p.s. what would it take for you to overcome your obvious fetish with Richard Dawkins, Timaeus? Maybe someone will have to 'engineer' you a meme-replacement for Dawkins-fetish.Gregory
September 17, 2012
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Gregory: Of course any "scientific" pursuit (biology, physics, economics, history, etc.), conceived of as a human activity, is, by the very fact of being a human activity, going to be (with very few exceptions) end-directed: people do things for a purpose. So there is no doubt that the activity of biologists can be thought of in teleological terms. No argument there. The question at issue between ID and Darwinism, however, is not whether or not the science of biology has a goal (it does, and the goal is to understand living things); the question is whether or not the origin of living things and living systems is best understood teleologically, i.e., as an outcome foreseen and engineered by a planning intellect. The ID people say yes, the atheist Darwinists say no, and the TE Darwinists say yes with their "right brain" and no with their "left brain." Of course, we could be more cynical about the goal of the science of biology. We could say that the goal of the science of biology -- as practiced throughout most of the 20th century -- was to show that, while living things seem to have been called into existence to serve certain ends, that appearance is illusory. Biology is then the study of things that appear designed but aren't. (Dawkins) So the goal of biology as an activity would then be, not the understanding of life, but the understanding of life in a reductionist, materialist way. That is changing. The number of biologists who think like engineers is on the upswing, and the number who think exclusively in terms of blind material processes is decreasing. The 21st century will likely be remembered, in the history of biology, as the century which reversed the reductionist-materialist turn taken by biology in the late 19th century, and put teleology back at the century of the subject again (where it had been for the 23 centuries before Darwin). The period from Darwin to Dawkins will be thought of as an aberration from sane science, an aberration caused by the domination of biological research by an anti-teleological metaphysics.Timaeus
September 17, 2012
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DNA is among the most inert and nonreactive of organic molecules; that is why stretches of DNA can be recovered intact from fossils long after all the proteins have been lost. - R.C. Lewontin
So was the 'choice' of DNA just a historical accident? Was the 'choice' of DNA one that was arrived upon after much trial and error? How remarkable, the properties of DNA, considered as an engineering problem.Mung
September 16, 2012
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Correction: ...the storage of energy or the storage of information?Mung
September 15, 2012
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Now what would need to come first, the storage of information or the storage of information? And there's yet another engineering problem, how to store information and then make use if it at a later time.Mung
September 15, 2012
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...we are only at the beginning of the adventure to find the design principles of biological systems. ...Without such principles, it is difficult to imagine how we can make sense of biology on the level of an entire cell, tissue, or organism. The program of biology is reverse engineering on a grand scale. - Uri Alon, An Introduction to Systems Biology: Design Principles of Biological Circuits
Mung
September 15, 2012
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OT:
One Body - animation - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDMLq6eqEM4
bornagain77
September 15, 2012
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johnnyb, ba77, others, We need to set up a lending library through the Discovery Institute. :) From the preface:
We believe that the study of mechanical design in organisms using the approach of the mechanical engineer and the materials scientist can promote an understanding of organisms at all levels of organization, from molecules to ecosystems. Certain basic engineering concepts, such as strength, rigidity and viscoelasticity, can be understood in terms of interactions between atoms and molecules, and this understanding allows us to interpret the mechanical behaviour of skeletal materials in terms of their molecular organization. Building from this understanding of skeletal materials, we can apply engineering theory to consider the shape and distribution of structural elements within organisms and the overall design strategy of complete skeletal systems. Finally, knowing the mechanical design of an organism as a whole we can begin to consider its interaction with other organisms and with the physical environment. In travelling this road we have come across a number of design principles that appear to govern the structure-function relationships in organisms and interestingly in man-made structures as well.
They sure don't seem to be afraid to use the dreaded 'd' word. But then, I think this book was first published in 1976.Mung
September 15, 2012
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Mung this book:
Mechanical Design in Organisms [Paperback] Description: One of the most useful and important books I have reviewed. The designer of a bridge needs to know the strength of his steel or concrete and he needs to know how forces are transmitted through structures.... A biologist studying an animal or plant structure cannot understand it fully without the same sort of knowledge. (The Quarterly Review of Biology ) http://www.amazon.com/dp/0691083088
,,,Looks very interesting. The price is another matter: 16 new from $70.65 23 used from $41.98bornagain77
September 14, 2012
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Mung - That's awesome! Now I just need money....johnnyb
September 14, 2012
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johnnyb, Mechanical Design in Organisms Life's Devices: The Physical World of Animals and Plants An Introduction to Systems Biology: Design Principles of Biological CircuitsMung
September 14, 2012
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thanksMung
September 14, 2012
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Mung, your comment about *storing* energy just struck me. Of course it is obvious that biological systems store energy for later use if we stop and think about it. But I guess it was so 'obvious' that I hadn't occurred to me before to think of it in the context of a simple self-replicating organism. Really throws a wrench into what is required and jacks up the requirements. Good thoughts.Eric Anderson
September 14, 2012
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Eric @13/14: Obviously, the easiest thing would be to locate and use available "free" energy. But how many cells actually do that? And what would be the simplest system required even for that little bit of function. while i appreciate work done on SSR, we can simply even further than that, even that depends on energy! Now take a system that wants to STORE energy for later use. Now there's an engineering problem! ;) I remember Liddle bring up Szostac. She was just hand-waving, as usual. How do we get the products required for energy utilization through the simplest cell membrane and then get waste products back out? Compare: http://exploringorigins.org/protocells.html TO: http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11630 I had hoped to move that discussion to the MIT book but went on hiatus. It's nowhere as simple as she thought. I have to believe it's because she hadn't really looked in to the matter in any depth. Grasping at straws, she was.Mung
September 14, 2012
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