Systems Biology as a Research Program for Intelligent Design Cover Image

Biologia systemowa jako paradygmat badawczy teorii inteligentnego projektu
Systems Biology as a Research Program for Intelligent Design

Author(s): David W. Snoke
Subject(s): Philosophy
Published by: Instytut Filozofii, Uniwersytet Zielonogórski
Keywords: paradigm in systems biology; engineering; Darwinism; bottom-up approach; top-down approach; design; teleology; information; optimization

Summary/Abstract: Opponents of the intelligent design (ID) approach to biology have sometimes argued that the ID perspective discourages scientific investigation. To the contrary, it can be argued that the most productive new paradigm in systems biology is actually much more compatible with a belief in the intelligent design of life than with a belief in neo-Darwinian evolution. This new paradigm in system biology, which has arisen in the past ten years or so, analyzes living systems in terms of systems engineering concepts such as design, information processing, optimization, and other explicitly teleological concepts. This new paradigm offers a successful, quantitative, predictive theory for biology. Although the main practitioners of the field attribute the presence of such things to the outworking of natural selection, they cannot avoid using design language and design concepts in their research, and a straightforward look at the field indicates it is really a design approach altogether.

  • Issue Year: 2015
  • Issue No: 12
  • Page Range: 255-285
  • Page Count: 31
  • Language: English, Polish