Skip to main content
Log in

Irreducible Complexity and The Problem of Biochemical Emergence

  • Published:
Biology and Philosophy Aims and scope Submit manuscript

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

References

  • Agrawal, A., Eastman, Q.M. and Schatz, D.G.: 1998, ‘Transposition Mediated by RAG1 and RAG2 and Its Implications for the Evolution of the Immune System’, Nature 394, 744-751.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bachman, P.A., Luisi, P.L. and Lang J.: 1992, ‘Autocatalytic Self-Replicating Micelles as Models for Prebiotic Structures’, Nature 357, 57-59.

    Google Scholar 

  • Basalla, G.: 1988, The Evolution of Technology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blackstone, N.W.: 1997, ‘Argument ad Ignorantiam’, The Quarterly Review of Biology 72, 445-446.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brooks, D.R. and Wiley, E.O.: 1986, Evolution as Entropy: Toward a Unified Theory of Biology, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brooks, D.R. and Wiley, E.O.: 1988, Evolution as Entropy, Second Edition, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, J.H.: 1983, ‘Evolving Concepts of Multigene Families’, Isozymes 10, 401-417.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavalier-Smith, T.: 1997. ‘The Blind Biochemist’, Trends in Evolution and Ecology 12, 162-163.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deamer, D.W. and Harang, E.: 1990, ‘Light-Dependent pH Gradients are Generated in Liposomes Containing Ferricyanide’, BioSystems 24, 1-4.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deamer, D.W. and Pashley, R.M.: 1989, ‘Amphiphilic Components of the Murchison Carbonaceous Chondrite: Surface Properties and Membrane Formation’, Origin of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 19, 21-38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Depew, D.J. and Weber, B.H.: 1995, Darwinism Evolving: Systems Dynamics and the Genealogy of Natural Selection, MIT Press, Cambridge MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doolittle, R.F.: 1993, ‘The Evolution of Vertebrate Blood Coagulation: A Case of Yin and Yang’, Thrombosis Haemostasis 70, 24-28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doolittle, R.F.: 1995, ‘The Multiplicity of Domains in Proteins’, Annual Review of Biochemistry 64, 287-314.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doolittle, R.F. and Feng, D.F.: 1987, ‘Reconstructing the History of Vertebrate Blood Coagulation from a Consideration of the Amino Acid Sequences of Clotting proteins’, Cold Spring Harbor Symposium on Quantitative Biology 52, 869-874.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eigen, M.: 1992, Steps Toward Life: A Perspective on Evolution, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fox, R.F.: 1998, Energy and the Evolution of Life, Freeman, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gerhart, J. and Kirschner, M.: 1997, Cells, Embryos, and Evolution: Toward a Cellular and Developmental Understanding of Phenotypic Variation and Evolutionary Adaptability, Blackwell Science, Malden MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert, S.F.: 1991, A Conceptual History of Modern Embryology, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert, S.F.: 1997, Developmental Biology (Fifth Edition), Sinauer, Sunderland MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gordon, R.: 1998, The Hierarchical Genome and Differentiation Waves: Novel Unification of Development, Genetics and Evolution, World Scientific, Singapore.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gray, R.: 1992, ‘Death of the Gene: Developmental Systems Strike Back’, in Griffiths, P. (ed.), Trees of Life: Essays in Philosophy of Biology, Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp. 165-209.

    Google Scholar 

  • Griffiths, P.E. and Gray, R.D.: 1994, ‘Developmental Systems and Evolutionary Explanation’, The Journal of Philosophy 91, 277-304.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, B.K.: 1992, Evolutionary Developmental Biology, Chapman and Hall, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harold, F.M.: 1986, The Vital Force: A Study of Bioenergetics, Freeman, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harold, F.M.: 1991, ‘Biochemical Topology: From Vectorial Metabolism to Morphogenesis’, Bioscience Reports 11, 347-385.

    Google Scholar 

  • John Paul II: 1997, ‘Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences’, The Quarterly Review of Biology 72, 381-383.

    Google Scholar 

  • Joyce, G.F. and Orgel, L.E.: 1993, ‘Prospects for Understanding the Origin of the RNA World’, in Gesteland, R.F. and Atkins, J.F. (eds.), The RNA World, Cold Spring Harbor Press, Cold Spring Harbor, pp. 1-25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kauffman, S.A.: 1993, The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution, Oxford University Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kleinzeller, A.: 1995, Exploring the Cell Membrane: Conceptual Developments, Elsevier, Amsterdam.

    Google Scholar 

  • Li, W.-H.: 1997, Molecular Evolution, Sinauer, Sunderland MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Loomis, W.F.: 1998, Four Billion Years: An Essay on the Evolution of Genes and Organisms, Sinauer, Sunderland MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maynard Smith, J.: ‘Life at the Edge of Chaos’, The New York Review of Books 42(2), 28-30.

  • Maynard Smith, J. and Szathmary, E.: 1995, The Major Transitions in Evolution, Freeman, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morowitz, H.: 1992, Beginnings of Cellular Life: Metabolism Recaptitulates Biogenesis, Yale University Press, New Haven.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morowitz, H., Deamer, D.W. and Smith, T.: 1991, ‘Biogensis as an Evolutionary Process’, Journal of Molecular Evolution 33, 207-208.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nagel, G.M. and Doolittle, R.F.: 1995, ‘Phylogenetic Analysis of the Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases’, Journal of Molecular Evolution 40, 487-498.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicholls, D.G. and Ferguson, S.J.: 1992, Bioenergetics 2, Academic Press, San Diego.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicolis, G. and Prigogine, I.: 1977, Self-Organization in Nonequilibrium Systems: From Dissipative Structures to Order through Fluctuations, Wiley-Interscience, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicolis, G. and Prigogine, I.: 1989, Exploring Complexity: An Introduction, Freeman, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oyama, S.: 1992, ‘Ontogeny and Phylogeny: A Case of Metarecapitulation?’, in Griffiths, P. (ed.), Trees of Life: Essays in Philosophy of Biology, Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp. 211-239.

    Google Scholar 

  • Patthy, L.: 1991, ‘Exons: Original Building Blocks of Proteins?’, BioEssays 13, 187-192.

    Google Scholar 

  • Patthy, L.: 1994, ‘Introns and Exons’, Current Opinions in Structural Biology 4, 383-392.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raff, R.A.: 1996, The Shape of Life: Genes, Development, and the Evolution of Animal Form, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salthe, S.N.: 1993, Development in Evolution: Complexity and Change in Biology, MIT Press, Cambridge MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swenson, R. and Turvey, M.T.: 1991, ‘Thermodynamic Reasons for Perception-Action Cycles’, Ecological Psychology 3, 317-348.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ulanowicz, R.E.: 1996, ‘The Propensities of Evolving Systems’, in Khalil, E.L. and Boulding, K.E. (eds.), Evolution, Order and Comlexity, Routledge, London, pp. 217-233.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ulanowicz, R.E.: 1997, Ecology, The Ascendent Perspective, Columbia University Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weber, B.H.: 1998a, ‘Origins of Order in Dynamical Models’, Biology and Philosophy 13, 133-144.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weber, B.H.: 1998b, ‘Emergence of Life and Biological Selection from the Perspective of Complex Systems Dynamics’, in Van de Vijver, G., Salthe, S. and Delpos, M. (eds.), Evolutionary Systems, Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp. 59-66.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weber, B.H. and Depew, D.J.: 1996, ‘Natural Selection and Self-Organization: Dynamical Models as Clues to a New Evolutionary Synthesis’, Biology and Philosophy 11, 33-65.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weber, B.H. and Depew, D.J.: 1998, ‘Does the Second Law of Thermodynamics Refute the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis?’, in Koslowski, P. (ed.), Developmental Systems, Competition, and Cooperation in Sociobiology and Economics, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, in press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Webster, G. and Goodwin, B.: 1996, Form and Transformation: Generative and Relational Principles in Biology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wicken, J.S.: 1987, Evolution, Information and Thermodynamics: Extending the Darwinian Program, Oxford University Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, R.J.P. and Frausto da Silva, J.J.R.: 1996, The Natural Selection of the Chemical Elements: The Environment and Life's Chemistry, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wills, C.: 1989, The Wisdom of the Genes: New Pathways in Evolution, Basic Books, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wills, C.: 1991, Exons, Introns, and Talking Genes, Basic Books, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, A.C., Carlson, S.S. and White, T.J.: 1977, ‘Biochemical Evolution’, Annual Reviews of Biochemistry 46, 573-639.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wistrow, G.: 1993. ‘Lens Cyrstallins: Gene Recruitment and Evolutionary Dynamism’, Trends in Biochemical Science 18, 301-306.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Weber, B.H. Irreducible Complexity and The Problem of Biochemical Emergence. Biology & Philosophy 14, 593–605 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006575823752

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006575823752

Keywords

Navigation