A Critique of Pure (Genetic) Information

Introduction xix
Schrödinger, relying, in his case, on the implications of computersimulated
models of complex nonlinear systems. Kauffman finds that
given certain internal parameters a complex system will gain “order for
free” by converging on some comparatively small number of attractor
states. Kauffman’s model, while complex as a formal system, is still far
simpler than any actual biological system. While his work provides a
powerful window into the nonintuitive, self-ordering consequences of the
dynamics of nonequilibrium complex systems and an important rejoinder
to Schrödinger and his descendents, it is shown to pose reductionistic
dangers of its own.
The final category of parallel epigenetic systems that I consider is
that of chromatin marking. My discussion here is comparatively brief
and pertains to the ability of cells to chemically modify genomic DNA
in developmentally and environmentally sensitive ways, including the
gender-specific chromosome marking found in all mammals and referred
to as imprinting. The larger significance of such mechanisms may only
come to be fully appreciated when the extent of the plasticity of DNA
itself is more fully disclosed. Chapter 3 concludes with a brief consideration
of the implications of this understanding of biological order (for
which Gene-D would provide the proper gene concept) for rethinking
evolutionary theory.
Chapter 4 begins with an historical analysis that parallels that of
chapter 1 but this time with an emphasis on how conceptions of cancer
follow from different conceptions of the basis of biological order. By
the end of the nineteenth century the Keime und Anlagen of the neo-
Kantians had become localized to within cells in general and to the ovum
in particular. As repositories of the developmental potential of the whole,
cells took on a certain monadic status, being both constituent parts and
yet also self-contained reflections of the whole. So conceived, cancer is
not determined from within, as any cell could potentially veer off in a
novel direction, but rather in terms of those supracellular pathways of
interaction and organization that must be the basis on which developmental
destinations are realized. The monadic view of cells leads to a
cellular-organizational field theory that would understand carcinogenesis
to be the result of disruptions of an organizational field. A disruption
might result from an environmental “irritant,” leading to the misplaced