Literature

Nobel laureate Paul Nurse writes: "Biology stands at an interesting juncture". The many remarkable advances in our understanding of living organisms are mostly built on molecular biology. However, these are mainly at the building block level. And because we have clarified our thinking about these, we have deceived ourselves into thinking that we understand the bigger picture. "Our past successes have led us to underestimate the complexity of living organisms".

"But comprehensive understanding of many higher-level biological phenomena remains elusive. Even at the level of the cell, phenomena such as general cellular homeostasis and the maintenance of cell integrity, the generation of spatial and temporal order, inter- and intracellular signalling, cell 'memory' and reproduction are not fully understood."

Until we understand their information systems, our knowledge of organisms is of a preliminary nature (image source here)

So, where do we go from here? How should these conceptual weaknesses be addressed? The answer is that we need a much greater understanding of information flows in cells, tissues, the whole organisms and also ecosystems.
"We need to focus more on how information is managed in living systems and how this brings about higher-level biological phenomena. There should be a concerted programme to investigate this, which will require both the development of the appropriate languages to describe information processing in biological systems and the generation of more effective methods to translate biochemical descriptions into the functioning of the logic circuits that underpin biological phenomena."

To give an idea of what this means in practice, Nurse refers to the work of describing and cataloguing the logic circuits that are found in nature:

"I shall call these segments 'logic modules'. One example of such a module is the negative feedback loop, which often operates in a homeostatic manner. Another example is the positive feedback loop, which can generate irreversible switch behaviour from one state to another. Combinations of modules will produce more sophisticated outcomes: for example, reversible toggle switches, timers and oscillators."
[snip]
"The next steps will be to use the databases described above to determine the probability that specific components of the chemical tool-kit are associated with a particular logic module. Finally, the modules will be linked together into a complete circuit, allowing outputs to be predicted so that the functioning of the circuit can be translated into a narrative of information flow to describe how the cellular phenomenon works."

There is a welcome emphasis in this essay. However, it is hard to read it without thinking that the author is underplaying the significance of other initiatives to study the role of information in biological systems. Recognition of logic circuits in cell biology is not novel, and systems biology provides an integrated framework for the study of feedback mechanisms, modular structures, robustness of systems and the phenomenon of redundancy. ID scientists have made numerous contributions in this area, witness this position statement from the Biologic Institute:

"When you realize that living cells store, transmit, and process information, the similarities with human technology are unavoidable. But when you get a glimpse of the remarkable sophistication of the cellular processes - and the almost unbelievably small scale of the molecular systems performing them - you begin to realize that humans are novices when it comes to complex design."

The above comment is significant because Nurse has one very important passage where he explains that biological design differs from human design. Nurse comes from the perspective that there is no intelligence behind biological design:

"We need to take account of the biological origins of the logic circuits and networks that operate in cells. Because natural selection operates on pre-existing living organisms, novelties will initially arise as add-ons to systems already in existence, almost guaranteeing some redundancy. Thus, man-made machines, which are generally intelligently designed, will differ from the logic machines found in life. Living machines are intelligently designed and will often be redundant and overly complex. We should anticipate these differences and be prepared for the additional complexity to be found in the logic circuits that manage information in cells."

In principle, here is a way to test the contrasting perspectives of the Blind Watchmaker hypothesis and the Intelligent Design hypothesis. But Nurse is wrong to think that redundancy is not a feature of intelligently designed systems - a chat with a human system designers will quickly reveal many examples! But there are differences: blind evolutionary mechanisms will display the phenomenon of tinkering, with many dead ends and useless pseudosystems. By contrast, intelligent design will evidence exquisite structures with back-up systems that come into operation if the main system fails. If evolutionists will allow their approach to be tested in this way, it could open the door to some really interesting discussions!

One final point: Nurse knows that his proposed project requires a multidisciplinary input. This is absolutely right. Roll on the day when research groups like this consider themselves seriously deficient if there are not at least two members that are open to the possibility of intelligent design. In view of Nurse's personal journey through life, welcoming ID members to his own team could be a stimulus to see if his "sceptical agnostic" position is robust or worthy of fresh critical scrutiny.

"The groups will need to be multidisciplinary, including information theorists, mathematicians, physicists, chemists and computer scientists working closely with experimental biologists who have good biological intuition and who can communicate with members of the other disciplines. Different workshop groups could interact with each other through digital conversations to share ideas."

Life, logic and information
Paul Nurse
Nature 454, 424-426 (24 July 2008) | doi:10.1038/454424a

Focusing on information flow will help us to understand better how cells and organisms work.