Philosophy

For Science

• An atom-first perspective on biology should be thrilling to nascent biologists and humbling to accomplished biologists.

• It places human discoveries, remarkable as they are, and discoverers, remarkable as we are, within the context of atom-scale complexity and the fundamental limitations of human perception and intuition.

• Much of biology developed during a colonial era of conquest and classification, where understanding was advanced by dividing large wholes into smaller, manageable parts. This approach was necessary given the methods available at the time, even if it was not always aligned with a coherent philosophy of nature.

• We can no longer claim ignorance of the limitations of this pursuit in the context of biophysical reality (Lotka 1925).

• Biology hitherto has been defined by breakthroughs made by individuals, the future of biology, from this biophysically-consistent perspective demands team science, with emphasis on measurement of matter.  

• This emphasis on consistency (in measurement, analysis, and prediction) helps minimize biases driven by prestige, novelty, or individual self-interest: key obstacles in 21st century biology. 

• Curiosity lead us to science. But doubt drives science. Doubt of assumptions and inferences embedded in classical biology is the fuel for teams of future biologists to test, and advance. 

For Life

“Life is a single spark between two eternities.”
— Vladimir Nabokov, quoted by David Gilmour

• Sparks, electrons released from zinc atoms in a father’s sperm, break bonds in a mother’s egg membrane, and we happen.

• The same thing must occur for memories to form: stray electrons, sparks, flowing through neurochemical reactions, at least at the atom scale.

• It is this flame, the flow of electrons, that is us.

• Not the atoms that give us mass, measured by a bathroom scale, but the electrons we have flicked off orbitals. A smile and a stare generate different sparks, different reactions.

• In this sense, we are the reactions we have catalyzed, while recognizing that those reactions are endless, and ultimately beyond our control.