Quote of the Week
(March 24, 2025)

Is the entire matter really so vexing? The mystery of the unexpected coherence that molecular biologists confront, for example, in RNA splicing and DNA damage repair is, from a perfectly reasonable point of view, neither a mystery nor unexpected. The problem arises only at the moment when we refuse to accept life as a foundational fact of the universe and unreasonably demand that an organism’s living performances be explained in an inanimate manner. Then, and only then, do we find it difficult to make sense of things.

But, fortunately, researchers never can wholly resist the urge to make good sense of things. They seek an understanding of whatever issue they are working on by looking for the coherence and meaning of events. This is necessary in order to provide at least some minimal context for their physical analyses. And it is so natural that it easily occurs without any conscious effort. What then happens, and what so badly distorts the practice of biology, is that this recognized coherence and meaning must be squeezed out of any ultimate explanation, which is allowed to proceed solely in terms of physics and chemistry. The result is rarely pretty.

(from Chapter 8, “The Mystery of an Unexpected Coherence”, in Organisms and Their Evolution — Agency and Meaning in the Drama of Life)

— See all quotes to date