Biological complementarity of the molecular and functional
pp. 71-131
in: , Complementarity beyond physics, Berlin, Springer, 2017Abstract
This chapter demonstrates that a coherent explanation for various interlocking elements of complementarity epistemology in quantum physics is possible by treating atomic properties as grown in the environment of the experimental arrangement designed to measure them. It also shows why this interpretation vindicates Niels Bohr"s extension of complementarity into biology because the environmental dependence of biological properties is similar to dependence of quantum properties upon the physical context of the apparatus within which they get determined. This approach is then deployed to illuminate developmental biology concerned with morphogenetic processes in which a germ cell grows into an organism, evolutionary biology concerned with the dynamics and pattern of organic evolution, and Gaian ecology of self-regulating processes in the biosphere.