The hole in the whale - The philosophy of biology
Further reviews and references "A lawless world", writes the Main Post on November 14, 2003: Anyone who has ever gone to school knows that the world revolves in the corset of natural laws. It is physics and mathematics that have defined our limits and possibilities for centuries. The "living" science of biology fell behind as supposedly less precise. And yet nothing can explain the world like biology. Christian Göldenboog demonstrates this impressively in his book "The Hole in the Whale". In his "Philosophy of Biology" he shows the fundamental differences to other natural sciences and underpins the idea of biology as a leading science. To this end, the author conducts five interviews with outstanding experts from various disciplines, including the population geneticist Francisco J. Ayala, the evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr and the Würzburg sociobiologist Bert Hölldobler, who is known even to laypeople as an ant researcher. The book gives nothing less than an answer that reflects the scientific status in many facets to the question of the position, value and future of people in the world, which, however, makes it clear that countless exciting questions must remain unanswered. PM - Peter Moosleitners Magazin, December 2003: In conversations with leading evolutionary biologists, the author clarifies the different ways of thinking of physics and biology and reveals the outlines of a new philosophy of biology. Exciting read with fascinating examples. Die Welt on 09/17/2003: A book about biology, and - nowadays - nothing about cloning? Anyone hoping for stem cells or cloned sea jellyfish is definitely wrong here. Rather, this book is about the philosophical side of biology and how it can answer questions about the position of humans in the world. Our thinking about truth and the laws of nature has been dominated for 300 years by their scientific sisters, physics and mathematics. The author thinks that should be the end of it now. In five interviews with prominent scientists - from sociobiologists to population geneticists - he fathoms the most important findings of the life sciences. The spectrum ranges from the evolutionary race between large animals and small parasites to extraterrestrial life and the question of God's existence. And for the never-ending clone debate, there is at least one piece of advice at the end. The Berlin literary criticism on November 25, 2003: The list of experts that Göldenboog consulted for his book on modern scientific philosophy ranges from evolutionary biologists to population geneticists to zoologists. Away from physics, which wants to explain the world with mathematical equations. Instead of explaining rigid numbers and equations, he deals with living organisms. Psycho-Path, the Saxony-wide newspaper for psychology students, No. 13, July 4th, 2007: Books – with the best recommendations: “The hole in the whale” by Christian Göldenboog (... entertaining illustration of the fact that the scientific model of physics and mathematics cannot be transferred to the living sciences). Gottfried Kleinschmidt, MNU - The mathematical and scientific lessons, 2004: The book not only wants to make a contribution to the "new philosophy of biology", but also to help clarify what evolutionary biology actually is. These clarification processes require intensive interdisciplinary engagement with our Ideas about coincidence, time, cause, purpose, effect, diversity and life, for example on topics such as: physics versus biology - evolution and molecular biology - world formula and biology - theory of evolution and population genetics - information theory and genetics - extragalactic life (God) and the philosophy of biology - evolutionary biologist and zoology. Therefore, the book will probably find the desired attention from physicists, biologists, computer scientists and philosophers, because it almost challenges critical work. In the five chapters, the author investigates important questions: Where does that come from efforts of theoretical physicists, to design a world formula? What are the differences between biology and theoretical physics? Can the discussion between Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr about "the hole in the whale" help to clarify the tensions between physics and biology? Can evolutionary biology (Ernst Mayr) help to clarify the discrepancies between biology and physics? How do scientists today interpret the famous Book "What is life?" by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger and what conclusions result from this for the new philosophy of biology? How do well-known experts and basic researchers interpret the connections between sociobiology, evolutionary genetics, bioinformatics, molecular biology and physics? The interdisciplinary approach of the technical discussions will some incompatible positions become clear. It is precisely these discrepancies and contrary positions that form the central themes of the "new philosophy of biology". An example: Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) published his "Formel f for the world” (world formula). In 1988 the English astrophysicist and mathematician Stehen W. Hawking published his theory of a world formula. This world formula could be a "final triumph of human reason - for then we would know God's plan". French physicists and mathematicians in particular have sharply criticized Hawking, calling his search for the world formula the "megalomaniac delirium of an unrealistic scholar" (E. Klein and M. Lachièze, 1996 and 1999). The always fascinating question is: Can the phenomena of life be reduced to a few or a single law or to quantum mechanical processes? The search for the world formula is linked to the controversially discussed "reductionism". This reductionism is related to mathematics. Mathematics is not just the language of astronomy and physics, it is the basis of all science today, it is the language of science par excellence. Mathematics is the royal road to truth. Leibniz wrote the sentence: "God wrote the world in numbers!" and Aristotle is said to have said: "The whole of heaven is harmony and number." Not only evolutionary biology but also the "new philosophy of biology" has to deal with this reductionism " deal intensively. Does biology also have to be subordinate to this mathematical-physical interpretation of inanimate and animate nature? Ernst Mayr, as an evolutionary biologist, claims that the world of mathematics is contrary to the world of life. In the world of life everything is variation. Change and Deviations are the sources for new, future developments. In biology, the time factor (the historical principle) plays a decisive role, for example, for the change in a population through natural selection. What is the function of chance and necessity in nature? This also fits the heated debate about the concepts of goal, purpose and cause in evolution, which Max Delbrück, 1971, in intensely involved. The controversial discussion of this and a wealth of other “incompatibilities” make this book so exciting and worth reading.
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