Rose on Biology/Freedom: BBS Call for Book Reviewers

Below is the abstract of the Precis of a book that will shortly be circulated for Multiple Book Review in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS): BIOLOGY, FREEDOM, DETERMINISM PRECIS FOR BBS MULTIPLE REVIEW by Steven Rose http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.rose.html or ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/.WWW/bbs.rose.html BBS is an international, interdisciplinary journal providing Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Reviewers must be BBS Associates or nominated by a BBS Associate. To be considered as a reviewer for this book, to suggest other appropriate reviewers, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate, please send EMAIL to: bbs(a)cogsci.soton.ac.uk or write to: Behavioral and Brain Sciences Department of Psychology University of Southampton Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/ http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/ ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/ ftp://ftp.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/pub/bbs/ gopher://gopher.princeton.edu:70/11/.libraries/.pujournals If you are not a BBS Associate, please send your CV and the name of a BBS Associate (there are currently over 10,000 worldwide) who is familiar with your work. All past BBS authors, referees and commentators are eligible to become BBS Associates. To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator. An electronic draft of the full text is available for inspection with a WWW browser, anonymous ftp or gopher according to the instructions that follow after the abstract. Please note that it is the book, not the Precis, that is to be reviewed. It would be helpful if you indicated in your reply whether you already have the book or would require a copy. ____________________________________________________________________ LIFELINES: BIOLOGY, FREEDOM, DETERMINISM PRECIS FOR BBS MULTIPLE REVIEW Steven Rose Professor of Biology and Director of the Brain and Behaviour Research Group Open University Milton Keynes MK7 6AA UK s.p.r.rose(a)open.ac.uk KEYWORDS: Neurogenetics, Homeodynamics; evolutionary theory, reductionism, ultra-Darwinism, autopoiesis; Metabolic webs, self-organisation; developmental trajectories; Human behaviour ABSTRACT: There are many ways of describing and explaining the properties of living systems; causal, functional and reductive accounts are all necessary, but no one has primacy. The history of biology as a discipline has given excessive authority to reductionism, which collapses higher level accounts, such as social or behavioural, into molecular ones. Such reductionism becomes crudely ideological when applied to the human condition with its claims for genes 'for' everything from sexual orientation to compulsive shopping. The current enthusiasm for genetic and ultraDarwinist accounts, with their selfish gene metaphors for living processes misunderstand both the phenomena of development and the interactive role that DNA and the fluid genome play in the cellular orchestra. DNA is not a blueprint, and the four dimensions of life (three of space, one of time) cannot be read off from its one-dimensional strand. Both developmental and evolutionary processes are more than merely instructive or selective; the organism constructs itself, a process known as autopoiesis, through a lifeline trajectory. Because organisms are thermodynamically open systems, living processes are homeodynamic, not homeostatic. The self-organising membrane-bound and energy-utilising metabolic web of the cell must have evolved prior to so-called naked replicators. Evolution is constrained by physics, chemistry and structure; not all change is powered by natural selection, and not all phenotypes are adaptive. Finally, therefore, living processes are radically indeterminate; we, like but to an even greater degree than all other living organisms, make our own future, though in circumstances not of our own choosing. -------------------------------------------------------------- To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate commentator for this article, an electronic draft is retrievable from the World Wide Web or by anonymous ftp or gopher from the US or UK BBS Archive. Ftp instructions follow below. Please do not prepare a commentary on this draft. Just let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the article. The URLs you can use to get to the BBS Archive: http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/ http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.rose.html ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/bbs.rose ftp://ftp.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/pub/bbs/Archive/bbs.rose gopher://gopher.princeton.edu:70/11/.libraries/.pujournals To retrieve a file by ftp from an Internet site, type either: ftp ftp.princeton.edu or ftp 128.112.128.1 When you are asked for your login, type: anonymous Enter password as queried (your password is your actual userid: yourlogin(a)yourhost.whatever.whatever - be sure to include the "@") cd /pub/harnad/BBS To show the available files, type: ls Next, retrieve the file you want with (for example): get bbs.rose When you have the file(s) you want, type: quit