Search

This paper approaches the issue of the status of teleological reasoning in contemporary biology through a historical examination of events of the 1930s that surrounded Niels Bohr's efforts to introduce 'complementarity' into biological discussions. The paper examines responses of three theoretical physicists who engaged boundary questions between the biological and physical sciences in this period in response to Bohr-Ernst Pascual Jordan (1902-80), Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961), and Max Delbrück (1906-81). It is claimed that none of these physicists sufficiently understood Bohr's 'critical' teleological arguments, which are traced to the lineage of Kant and Harald Høffding and their respective resolutions of the Antinomy of Teleological Judgment. The positions of these four historical actors are discussed in terms of Ernst Mayr's distinction of 'teleological,' 'teleomatic,' and 'teleonomic' explanations. A return to some of the views articulated by Bohr, and behind him, to Høffding and Kant, is claimed to provide a framework for reintroducing a 'critical' teleology into biological discussions., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This paper examines the history of biophysics at the University of Chicago, with a specific focus on the history of the Institute for Radiobiology and Biophysics (IRB), established at the university in 1945 as a continuation of the Manhattan Project. Discussed herein is how biophysical research developed at Chicago, and how the IRB formed the locus for early work in photosynthesis, phage genetics, and nucleic acid chemistry. The discontinuation of this institution in 1954 did not, however, terminate such work, but led to its dispersal into other entities within the university. Therefore the dramatic institutionalization of ''molecular biology'' and the creation of the Department of Biophysics under the presidency of George Beadle that commenced in the early 1960s relied upon a preexisting tradition rather than creating a new molecular phase in Chicago biology. This paper also shows that the interest in topics such as phage genetics and nucleic acid chemistry were continuous developments at Chicago from the early 1950s and did not represent a late interest in these topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]