Rules of the Magic(of Biology)

Entropy is always increasing.

If you hold to the Second Law of Thermodynamics that is. And essentially all scientists do.

What is entropy?

Entropy is a term used to describe the disorder of the universe. In physics or chemistry, it is measured as changes in heat, which typically increases when there is some sort of breakdown, or decrease in stability of a chemical or structure, for example in a fire.

As described above, entropy’s perpetual increase is described according to one of the Laws of Thermodynamics and by a related equation, three laws that are only a small representation of the many laws and calculations that govern chemistry and physics.

However, biology, which is often considered the third branch of science along with the other two, often does not seem to be governed by the same or even similar rules. Birds defy gravity, species evolve in a way that is difficult to predict, humans construct order from seeming chaos not necessarily defying the laws of chemistry and physics, just acting according to different ones.

Mathematics, physics, and chemistry currently have many laws that can be used to predict what happens within them. Since biology is only applied chemistry, by this simplified view, it is only about time that that kind of governance was sorted out for biology.

Whereas every other science can be strictly calculated and predicted, biology generally seems to have only one guiding principle: evolution, which depends largely on chance and circumstance. The same species in different environments or even the same environment in different conditions over several generations will evolve in distinctly different ways, eventually becoming their own species based on the seeming intention to survive. This intent also separates biological subjects from physical or chemical ones because biological matter is governed by intent to live to go towards nutrients, consume what they need, and produce offspring whereas physical and chemical matter are governed almost exclusively by their interactions with external forces. This makes biology seem ungoverned and thus unpredictable.

That is until now.

Many of the facets of biology currently seem almost magical. More specific study, through interdisciplinary collaborations like the ones at this conference will hopefully make biology seem less like magic and more like the more well-governed realms of chemistry and physics.

The previous view of biology makes it seem somewhat magical, dancing apart from the other more grounded science fields to the beat of its own drum. However, physics and chemistry once seemed that way as well. It was only the capability to and careful study of those processes that allowed scientists to develop the current models. And, considering the wide array of species that it would be necessary to study in order to come up with laws that govern evolution or biology at large have only come into being in the last few decades, it is no wonder that, while biologists have characterized many processes necessary in the field, there are few hard and fast rules for biological processes at the most general or minuscule level, that is, in evolution or molecular biology.

Since the dawn of computers, the computational capacity of scientists and mathematicians has grown drastically. This has allowed for advances in the fields of nonequilibrium physics, complex systems science, and information technology. They, along with evolutionary and molecular biologists, believe that by considering living things as agents collecting and storing information like computers, with DNA as their hard drive, can begin to develop a better understanding of how rules, like the Second Law of Thermodynamics, are reinterpreted within a biological system yet still obeyed within biological systems. In doing so, scientists can gain a better understanding of problems in biology ranging from why humans can’t live past 100 to how exactly the first vestiges of life came to be.

To confer on this interdisciplinary group of specialists held a conference this past November, many specifics of which are detailed here. Hopefully, this and furthering gatherings like it will allow scientists to further clarify the way biological systems develop.