An interview with
Professor Brian
Goodwin
by Dr David King
An Interview with Professor Brian Goodwin by Dr. David King. David King is a
molecular biologist and editor of GenEthics News.
David King: What are your criticisms of the prevailing paradigms in biology,
particularly Darwinism?
Brian Goodwin:
My main criticism of Darwinism is that it fails in its initial objective, which is to explain
the origin of species. Now, let me explain exactly what I mean by that.
I mean it fails to explain the emergence of organisms, the specific forms during
evolution like algae and ferns and flowering plants, corals, starfish, crabs, fish,
birds. That sort of spectrum of organism, each of which is distinct from the other. They
don't blend with each other, they are distinct from each other. Now the
problem is that in order to understand that the kind of distinct structure and form we
have to understand how organisms are actually generated, and that means
understanding how starting with an egg or a bud, the organism goes through a
developmental process and ends up as a particular type of species with a
particular morphology (shape and features). So the whole problem then is to try to
understand the nature of that process. One of the fundamental issues is
whether or not you can get more or less any kind of organism, or whether there are
constraints. Darwin turned biology into a historical science, and in
Darwinism, species are simply accidents of history, they don't have any inherent nature.
They are just 'the way things happened to work out' and there aren't
any particular constraints that mean it couldn't have all worked out very differently. An
example is the structure of the arm and the wings of birds. There is
always only bone at the top of the arm, never two, even though two would be very
useful to birds, but it's never evolved. So it looks like this is something that
simply cannot happen because there is an intrinsic constraint on that process. Now there
is plenty of evidence that that kind of constraint exists through the
whole of biology. In other words, the reason why species are distinct is because you
have only got certain types of forms, that can actually be generated by the
developmental process. That really begins to shift the emphasis with respect to how we
understand the different species and how they are related to each other.
In order to get a really firm grip on this, we actually need a theory of the whole
organism and its transformation. Organisms are organized wholes. That's why
they have these constraints. The sort of theory that you need to understand
morphogenesis involves understanding the components which organisms are made.
You certainly need to know a lot about molecules, but you have to understand how they
are put together and what sort of dynamics is involved. Now this is
where these new sciences that are called the sciences of complexity come into the
picture, where you actually look at the dynamics of complex systems, and see
how emergent order arises, in often very unexpected ways. This happens because of
what we call the relational order, the relationship between the components.
It doesn't matter so much what the components are, what they are made of. The really
important thing is the way they interact, and that is what determines the
type of order that is going to emerge. Now what I and my colleagues are trying to do is
to, in a sense, make a map between the pathways of morphogenesis that
are available to species organized in a particular way, like algae or plants or amphibians,
and to map that onto taxonomy (classification of species). In other
words, it's trying to make sense of what we see in evolution by having a theory of
morphogenesis (development of shape and form), and making a map
between morphogenesis and taxonomy. So it's turning biology into a rational science
rather than a historical science. There is no conflict. Everything that
happens has a history, so in a sense all sciences have a historical component, but
physics of course also has a very strong rational tradition. The whole point is
to try to understand why certain structures are necessary, and this is exactly what we do
in physics and the new biology. We are asking why has this particular
structure emerged in the biological world and this makes biology much more like
physics than the historical science that we got from Darwin.
King: How does your new model of biology incorporate genetics?
Goodwin:
A major problem is that in contemporary Darwinism, organisms are actually reduced to
genes and their products. Darwinism has given us a very good theory of
inheritance in terms of a theory of the genes, but what it has done is to sacrifice the
whole organism, as a real entity, to this reductionism, genetic reductionism.
That means that organisms have disappeared as real entities from biology, and that, I
think, this is a fundamental scientific error. There's another aspect of this
problem which has to do with the way Darwinists explains embryonic development.
They say that there is a genetic program that determines the development of
an organism. An organism wants to become a newt, say, or a sea urchin. Because it has
particular genes, they say, it undergoes a particular embryonic
development and that is sufficient, in other words knowing the genes is sufficient to
understand the details of the embryonic development, and the emergence of
a species with its characteristic form and behavior. That sounds, on the face of it,
plausible because we know that mutations actually cause transformation of
morphology. Drosophila can have a mutation that transforms a two winged fly to a four
winged fly. Now that is a pretty major transformation, and a single
gene can do it. So you might say that's the sort of thing that is involved in evolution.
Well, you see, the burden of proof then is on the neo-Darwinists to
demonstrate exactly how the genes do this. They use the term genetic programming, and
it is a metaphor for what happens in a computer, but if you ask them to
use a genetic program to generate an organism, they can't do it, and the reasons are very
simple. You need to know more than gene products in order to explain
the emergence of shape and form in organisms. You actually need a theory, a theory
that involves physics, chemistry, forces and spatial organization. You can
have complete details about genes and you are not going to be able to explain how
development occurs. So I think that is the fundamental test. When Darwinists
say to me 'genes are enough', I say 'Show me.'
King: What are the consequences of Darwinist reductionism?
Goodwin:
Let me pick up again this issue of the disappearance of organisms as real entities.
Because this really has quite profound consequences. I think that this
precipitates a kind of crisis of understanding of living forms. It's an extreme
reductionism that makes it impossible for us to understand concepts such as health.
Health refers to wholes, the dynamics of whole organisms. We currently experience
crises of health, of the environment, of the community. I think they are all
related. They are not caused by biology by any means, but biology contributes to these
crises by failing to give us adequate conceptual understanding of life and
wholes, of ecosystems, of the biosphere, and it's all because of genetic reductionism.
That's a pretty heavy charge, but let me just describe some of the
consequences of genetic reductionism. Once you've got organisms reduced to genes,
then organisms have no inherent natures. Now, in our theory of
evolution, species are natural kinds, they are really like the elements, if you like. I don't
mean literally, but they have the same conceptual status, gold has a
certain nature. We are arguing that, say, a sea urchin of a particular species has a nature.
Human beings have a nature. Now, in Darwinism, they don't have a
nature, because they're historical individuals, which arise as a result of accidents. All
they have done is pass the survival test. The Darwinian theory makes it
legitimate to shunt genes around from any one species to any other species: since
species don't have 'natures', we can manipulate them in any way and create
new organisms that survive in our culture. So this is why you get people saying that
there is really no difference between the creation of transgenic organisms,
that is moving genes across species boundaries, and creating new combinations of genes
by sexual recombination within species. They say that is no different
to what is happening in evolution. Well, you know, in my book that's a bit like saying
there is no difference between radioactive decay, radioactivity as you
find it naturally in Uranium, and using that for nuclear energy. Once you scale
something up to a particular level you are into a totally different scene. Now, I
think that there are the same problems that arise with respect to creation of transgenics,
and the reason is because of the utter unpredictability of the
consequences of transferring a gene from one species to another. Genes are defined by
context. Genes are not stable bits of information that can be shunted
around and express themselves independently of context. Every gene depends upon its
context. If you change the context, you change the activity of the gene.
There are particular cases where that doesn't appear to happen. You put the human gene
into bacteria and you get insulin out, but as you know, there is a recent
case in the States where the insulin has actually modified and it's not working properly.
And then you have got the problem of genes transferring from one
transgenic to a related species, resulting in the problem of ecological meltdown, or
ecological change that can be precipitated by the use of transgenic species in
agriculture. I'm by no means against biotechnology. I just think that it is something that
we have to use with enormous caution in its application. We need
stringent safety protocols. Now those are the issues of safety, and they are very serious,
because the rhetoric that goes with biotechnology is totally at variance
with reality. The biotech companies don't want to face the consequences of this radical
unpredictability which comes from the intrinsic complexity of
organisms. But there is also this really thorny question of species as natural kinds. And
when you transfer genes of one type of organism to another, what are
you doing to the nature of the species, the recipient species? Now I think that's a very
open question. I don't have a simple answer to this. I just think that it's
again, something very serious. It raises ethical issues.
King: How would those ethical questions look in the light of your alternative model of
biology?
Goodwin:
There is a particular consequence of the idea that species are 'natural kinds' that, I think,
is very important for a new type of science in relation to the living
realm. It works like this. If you acknowledge that species are natural kinds, so they have
natures, then it becomes possible to consider procedures whereby we
can understand those natures, that is we go through a process of qualitative evaluation
of the conditions under which those natures are being expressed, and
cannot be expressed. Let me just clarify that in relation to some specific examples. We
know when our domestic animals are distressed and in pain, when they
are happy and so on and so forth. In other words we have spontaneous intuitive ways of
evaluating the subjective state of domestic animals. Anybody who has
an intimate relationship with an animal knows what its subjective states are. Now I say
know, they would claim to know, and it seems perfectly legitimate, that
claim. But the whole question now is whether we can turn that into a science of
subjective states because that would then compliment the science of objectivity
which is the mode of contemporary science. In other words what we would be
developing is a science of qualities, of qualitative evaluation of other species,
and therefore a method of deciding when organisms are being denied the opportunity to
express their natures. And this is clearly extremely relevant to the way
we treat not just domestic animals and farm animals, but the rest of living nature. And
it's that relationship that we need, in order to heal these various crises of
the environment and of health and of community, because we've even lost the concept
of human nature. Human nature disappears as a concept from
neo-Darwinism, and so life become a set of parts, commodities that can be shifted
around. But the moment you recover this notion of nature, you are into a
different world and you operate in a different way. Now this I think is a pretty urgent
development, developing a science of qualities, and it's something we are
engaged in at Schumacher College. It has to be done with groups, because you have to
try to develop methods of qualitative assessment that are intersubjective,
just in the same way that in conventional science the evaluation of what we call reality
is dependent upon intersubjective consensus. We come together and carry
out these procedures, like experiments and observations and so on, and come to an
agreement,about what constitutes reality and what doesn't. And I think we
can have a parallel procedure to that in a science of qualities. I think that that would be a
fundamental contribution to this issue of how we treat other organisms
and at what point a transgenic would be losing its nature.
King: How would the new science affect our social theories?
Goodwin:
Well, another consequence of this new view of species and evolution is it does shift the
metaphors that are used to understand evolutionary processes. In
Darwinism, you know, the metaphors are of competition and conflict and survival, and
in Dawkins' writing it becomes embodied in the notion of selfish genes.
Well, from the perspective of organisms as complex dynamic systems, with natures and
trying to understand the ecosystem from the point of view, what you
find is that organisms are interacting with each other in all kinds of different ways. They
are as co-operative as they are competitive, and a lot of the time they
are simply making a living. In other words, it's not this nature red in tooth and claw,
with fierce competition and the survivors coming away with the spoils. In
fact, species extinction seems to be as much to do with the lottery which comes from the
dynamics of complex systems, as from anything else. The whole
metaphor of evolution, instead of being one of competition, conflict and survival,
becomes one of creativity and transformation. When you take on that
perspective and bring that into society then you say, all right, why don't we use those
metaphors in our social system as well. The metaphors of just making a
living, just getting by. Not getting profits into double figure percentages. Not survival
through serious competition, but making a living and sharing. I'm not
being Utopian, I'm not saying we are going to share everything, because there has to be
a certain conflict and competition. But instead of making that the
predominant mode, we say that's only one of the components of a vibrant creative
society. And the sciences of complexity are really taking on this character of
illuminating what it means to be creative. This concept of life at the edge of chaos. Now
that is a pretty dramatic metaphor, but what it means is that you
shouldn't have too much order. You shouldn't have too much chaos. Perhaps you should
be at the point where you can move backwards and forwards between
the two and actually be creatively responsive to circumstance. Now clearly, that model
is very attractive, but when you look at the dynamics of those systems,
you find that it is not driven by competition.They have a complex dynamic interaction
and it's that which produces creativity. So the whole business about
intellectual property rights and competition that we have in our society, people justify
them saying they happen in nature. That is not what happens in nature at
all. Nature as we read it now is a much more complex, coherent and creative type of
process than the one we have in our social and economic system. So we
can begin to contemplate the use of different metaphors and different instantiations of
these biological metaphors. You always have to be careful with
metaphors. You can't say this happens in biology, therefore it should happen in society.
You have to examine it on its own merits. But I think that there is a lot
to be said for a basic reevaluation of the metaphors we use in describing evolution,
economics and social change, that is arising out of the new sciences.