Is It Tomorrow, or Just The End of Time? Paradigm Shifts in the Biological Sciences
Martinez J. Hewlett, Ph.D., O.P.L.
Professor
University of Arizona and Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California
What does it mean to be a biologist or, in particular, a molecular biologist? For both students of the discipline as well as active researchers, this question had a seemingly easy answer until a few short years ago. However, like any science, biology has progressed through a series of dramatic changes. During a given period, the prevailing paradigm or research program shapes the ongoing activity within the field. Challenges to these underlying assumptions, and even to their presuppositions, as Artigas has defined these, can arise, sometimes in a revolutionary fashion. I argue that the biological sciences have been through two major revolutionary changes and are presently in the midst of a third. In the 19th century Darwin recast the mechanism of biological speciation into terms that appealed to natural rather than supernatural processes. By the middle of the 20th century, the neo-Darwinian model overtook biology. This blending of natural selection and Mendelian genetics was given a basis in both chemical and physical principles with the advent of molecular biology. For most of the second half of that century the philosophical position of the life sciences was dominated by both methodological and philosophical reductionism and, in many cases, an extreme form of ontological materialism. The hegemony of the molecular paradigm held firm until the beginning of the present century. The results of massive genomic analysis, especially using the human genome as a target, pushed the paradigm beyond its limits. As a result both the methods of research as well as the epistemology of the field have changed. The biological sciences have returned to the holistic or systems approach that characterized much of the period before the 20th century. What effect will this have on the ontological position of the discipline? And what will it mean for the science-religion dialogue? I will explore what this “new tomorrow” might reveal.