Delafield-Butt, Jonathan. "Biology." Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought Vol. II. Edited by Michel Weber and Will Desmond. Heusenstamm, Germany: Ontos Verlag, 2008. 157-168.

Abstract

Biology is the science of life. It examines the materials and processes of life in its varied forms of existence, from the smallest molecular interaction on a gene, to the large evolutionary changes of animal morphology across millenia. Biology is an enormous field that encompasses many schools of thought and many more research disciplines. For example, microbiology is concerned with micro-organisms such as yeast and bacteria; protistology deals with  the branch of unicelluar proto-animals; plant biology encompasses all studies on plants and plant growth; development biology examines the features of ontogenesis, including genetics, molecular, and cell biology; molecular biology pays attention to gene function in the cell; cell biology to the anatomy, biochemistry, and divisions of labor within the cell; evolutionary biology to the phylogenetic development of the forms and functions of genes, gene products, cell types, and whole organisms over the course of many thousands of re-iterative generations together. Basic biological research contributes to our understanding of the materials and processes of life's functions from the molecule through the cell, to the structures and functions of whole, living organisms. What life actually is is another question altogether. Biological research aims to define the substances of living things, their characteristics, and their inter-relations, but what life is is still unclear. The recognized biological characteristics are the cell (the simplest living unit), self-formation (ontogenesis), and reproduction (heredity), all of which exist and continue to exist in processes that create "living" order out of "dead disorder. Living things have "negative entropy": they exist at a sustained higher energy state than their surroundings and in doing so defy the second law of thermodynamics. Life therefore represents the transformation of energy from disorder to a sustained order. Life is all of these things, and perhaps more. Whitehead suggests that experience is also a part of life, yet this is a philosophical notion that is difficult to explore in mainstream biology itself. Biology is strictly a modern science and in that sense it is a pragmatic one, and is not philosophical. A strict adherence to the scientific method lies at the heart of the biological sciences; it is the only acceptable form of data acquisition and ties biologists to an empirically driven, verifiable view of external reality. Biology is not concerned with the features of phenomenal experience, but it prides itself on a strict materialism where third-party observations of biological form and function are the exclusive basis for a world-view. A mechanistic, material determinism forms the dominant philosophical position by proxy, underpinning interpretations of biological data and theory. Interestingly, biologists commonly do not consider theirs to be a philosophical position at all, but rather they view their method as uncovering reality itself, testable and verifiable through quantitative empirical research. Matter, such as ions, proteins, and nucleic acids, is treated as passive and predicatively reactive. The behavior of materials in living things is therefore investigated according to mechanical, "clockwork" models of causal relations. Modern informatics and complex systems approaches, though more sophisticated in their principles, do not differ from other models in their underlying assumption that a material determinism identifies truthfully "what there is." Organisms in biology are treated as complex arrangements of passive reactions arranged in biologically "functional" networks. Perhaps due to the remarkable technological applications of a deterministic biology, any serious philosophical alternative to determinism seems difficult for most professional biologists to accept. This discrepancy between science and philosophy is long standing. Loeb remarked, "Science is not the field of definitions, but of prediction and control" (1916, vi). In other words, Loeb was suggesting that science is not philosophical, but is geared for industrial means.  Materialism has been remarkably successful at advancing our understanding and useful manipulation of nature. Using the Newtonian conception of matter and the scientific method for verifying experimental phenomena, biology has excelled in its ability to grasp defining characteristics of living organisms. The benefits of this knowledge contribute significantly to the betterment of society through their application in medicine, veterinary medicine, animal husbandry, and agriculture. It is hard to argue that an alternative philosophical position, such as Whitehead's, might be appropriate to consider, especially when one considers that the marvels of modern biomedicine have been made possible by the mechanistic outlook. Surgeons can replace a failing heart, mend debilitating neurological dysfunction, and safely remove a potentially fatal carcinoma. These operations would not be successful without an in-depth understanding of the mechanisms of life, from the molecular detail of immunoreactivity to the gross physiological conditions necessary for sustained vital function. Biological knowledge has built modern medicine and further contributed to societal well-being through increased agricultural yields and prophylactic health measures such as vaccine, hygiene, and sanitation. As a form of "prediction and control" biology is an immensely satisfying body of knowledge. However, something remains unsatisfactory and the pragmatic logic of a material determinism cannot overcome one's personal feeling of what it is to be alive. And perhaps this is what is missing. Biology knows nothing of feelings, yet they are inextricably, unequivocally, undeniably a feature of our natural world. We know they are, because we are them; they are our experience of the world.