Hermeneutics and the Analysis of Complex Biological Systems
Gunther S. Stent · 2016
iological disciplines differ with respect B to the kind of controversies which they generate. In molecular biology, for instance, there are not so many controversies, and when a controversy does arise it is usually settled within a fairly short time. In ecological or evolutionary studies, by contrast, controversy is quite common, and disputes may persist without definitive resolution for many years. The main point I wish to make in this paper is that there is an obvious epistemological reason underlying this disciplinary difference, namely that the phenomena addressed by the more controversial disciplines are, in fact, more complex. What do we mean when we say that a phenomenon is complex? We mean that it is constituted of many component events, which interact in many different ways. Thus, the degree of complexity of a phenomenon is given not so much by the number of its component events as it is by the diversity of their interactions. For instance, a gallon bottle containing 1023 atoms of helium is a phenomenon of low complexity: despite their tremendous number, the helium atoms interact in only one way: they collide and exchange momentum. And so by taking just collision into account, it is possible to produce a good statistico-mechanical explanation of the pressure that the helium exerts on the walls of the bottle. By contrast, a city