Accessible updates on the technical literature; commentaries on that literature; and introductions (with links) to new articles associated with the “Biology Worthy of Life” project. The content in general relates to the dramatic discoveries re-shaping our understanding of organisms. The current focus is on gene regulation, evolution, and the meaning of organic wholeness — all of which can make for some occasionally wide-ranging excursions. Notes, commentaries, and articles are by Stephen L. Talbott of The Nature Institute.

Evolution Writ Small 4 December 2019
When we look at organic development, we see powers of directed change in the only place where they ever appear — in living organisms. These powers can hardly be irrelevant to evolution.A Mess of Causes 14 November 2019
Causes and effects are never neatly separable in organisms. Over and above physical causation, we discover a story-like coordination of causes. Biologists widely recognize this, but nevertheless try to describe biological processes as if they were nothing but a successio...
Our Bodies Are Formed Streams 27 August 2019
In living beings, structure arises from movement, not the other way around. Movement and transformation are primary. This is particularly evident in recent discoveries about the functioning of disordered proteins and about the importance of phase transitions in the cyto...
Let’s Not Begin With Natural Selection 19 July 2019
The key ideas of natural selection are commonly presented in the form of a core logic, or algorithm, that leads, with absolute certainty, to meaningful evolution. In reality, this logic is empty, and all the meaning depends upon what organism-agents actually do. By itself,...
Biology’s Missing Ideas 31 May 2019
All biological description involves narrative (story-like) elements, including purposiveness, intention, and, in general, more-than-physical meanings. But, while employing such description constantly, biologists prefer not to acknowledge it or account for it in their the...
The Mystery of an Unexpected Coherence 19 May 2019
RNA splicing and, in some organisms, the reconstruction of shattered genomes (and, in all organisms, the processes of DNA damage repair) illustrate the coherent, holistic, end-directed, epigenetic performance of living narratives.Context: Dare We Call It Holism? 7 May 2019
Every organism, and indeed every significant biological entity from a cell on up, is a governing context that informs and disciplines its own parts, while also participating in larger contexts; and the governance is established by the interwoven ideas that make the contex...
The Sensitive, Muscular Cell 7 May 2019
The cytoskeleton and cellular membranes illustrate both the integral unity of the cell and also the temptation to isolate parts in our thought as ‘controlling’ causes. In reality, we discover in every cell the power of the whole to express itself through its parts.
What Brings Our Genome Alive? 7 May 2019
The idea of DNA as an informational sequence encoding a genetic program is giving way to a much more dynamic idea involving three-dimensional chromosomes that actively gesture their meaningsThe Organism’s Story 30 January 2019
The fact of purposive activity — the obvious play of active agency, the coordination of means toward the realization of relatively stable ends, and the undeniable evidence that animals perceive a world and interpret their perceptions according to their own way of life —...
Scenes of Life 29 November 2018
We in the twenty-first century have inherited a rich and extensive library of descriptive literature about living things, their habitats, and their mutual relations, bequeathed to us over the centuries by dedicated naturalists. Unfortunately, in this age of molecular biol...
Evolution As It Was Meant To Be: An Overview 12 July 2018
As soon as we are willing to acknowledge the organism as a purposive agent, everything in our evolutionary theory needs to be thought differently. Among other consequences, we discover evolution to be a purposive and directional process in much the same sense as ontogeny (in...