Can life be explained by first principles?
This book is the result of a symposium held 13-15 May 1997 exploring the question, if science can explain life by first principles. A series of seventeen chapters each presenting a thesis followed by a panel discussion covers a broad spectrum of biology. For biologists, reductionism means that a particular characteristics of a living organism can be explained in terms of chemistry and physics. This would, in other words, eliminate the need for biology as a science. No wonder the question is important to biologists. The problem with biology, unlike physics, is that its objects of interest are extremely complex. The simpler a system, and this does not refer to size, the easier it is to understand it based on first principles, i.e., that reductionism works and the whole is simply the sum of its parts. Exploring the limits of reductionism in biology is important, because there is ample evidence that many fields of biological studies are non-reductionist in nature. It appears to be the goal
