Biological Systems

Biological systems incorporate physical, chemical, and genetic systems. Genetic systems are special cases of chemical systems since the genetic apparatus consists of gigantic molecules. Biological entities exhibit the property of life. They are irritable. Biological systems incorporate genetic systems that can utilize the physical and chemical systems to produce a higher order of system—the living system which insures the survivability of the genetic system itself.

The fact that we can look at the world and divide it into the living (organic) and the non-living (inorganic)—means we are looking at the work of genes. In cellular organisms the genes are made of DNA. The genes make living organisms what they are. There is an order of free-existing molecules that represents transitions between the molecules of organisms and the genetic molecules themselves. There is a class of molecules ((self-replicating, self-duplicating DNA) that make themselves with the help of protein enzymes and which in addition present parts of themselves (they are gigantic molecules in great chains) to be templates to make other molecules (RNA) which, in turn, go away and make other molecules (enzymes) that do the work of the organic system, usually the cell.

DNA has the recipe for the structure and function of the cell, including the production of the organelles of the cell. In addition, the DNA of each cell of a multicellular organism has all the information necessary to make the whole organism, whether it is an amoeba, an elephant, a volvox, or a redwood tree.

Scientists think RNA is the most primitive of the large self-replicating molecules since it can make itself while DNA requires the assistance of proteins which are made by RNA. RNA contains only a partial set of instructions for complex cellular organisms, but may contain sufficient information to cause its own replication. The basic experiments to "create" life employ systems in which the experimenters hope that RNA will replicate itself. This systems consists of lipids (oils) some RNA and the parts necessary to make the molecule. Some of these molecules may become mavericks and turn up in living systems as viruses.

It is a question as to whether the viruses are prototypes in the evolutionary scale to DNA and higher organisms or whether they are degenerate forms that were a structural part of living cells but which "escaped" to have a life of their own. We know the viruses particularly as disease agents. The rhinoviruses that cause the common cold are probably the best known of them. (Rhino = nose)

Our common experience is with the multicellular organisms. In fact, it was not until Anton van Leeuwen hoek, 1632-1723, (invented the microscope), that we knew anything else. There are two kinds of related evolutionary paths: (1) the real path of evolution of organisms from lower to higher forms and (2) the evolution of thought about evolution. We will never know about path #1 since we can not turn back time. For #2 the history of evolution is the evolution of thought.

We have taken the living and fossil organisms of the world and placed them in sequences that we believe represent evolutionary sequences. Since all life comes from life, our notions about evolution are not conjecture, but when we started there had to be a great leap to see that all living organisms were related to each other and that many had descended from common ancestors. In the early history of the human race, there was every reason to believe in the uniqueness of humankind. After all, the scholars that thought and studied about such problems had language which other higher animals did not have and they were studying the animals not the other way around. Since our language skills developed before the dawn of history, but just a short while ago in evolutionary terms—we seem to have always been what we are. It was not until we came to understand the time scales of evolution that we came to realize that we are recent additions to the kitchen cabinet of life.

The evolution of matter and antimatter from the urstoff (German for primary matter) of the singularity took microseconds. The mutual annihilation of the forming particles of matter and antimatter took minutes. (The exploding fireball got too big for the reactions to continue.) From the early atoms to the stars and our planet took about 5 billion years. Life appeared on Earth about 2-1/2 billion years ago. Animals, probably not Homo Sapiens, to begin with, first acquired language about 2-1/2 - 3-1/2 million years ago.

Communication and Information had to have existed in the singularity from before the big bang, otherwise the singularity would not have known what to do and there would have been no recipe for the singularity or the subsequent universe.

The evolution from urstoff to particles to atoms occurred quickly. Molecules other than the diatomic molecule hydrogen (H2) took a long time. Huge gas clouds condensed into stars, the hydrogen fusion furnace started and the transformation of the heavier elements from the hydrogen fuel began.

The Earth was probably formed by a near collision of two stars, ours and an unknown one, which pulled huge streamers of material out of the gaseous sun. The matter cooled, forming the planets as we known them. The Earth would have had an atmosphere of hydrogen, nitrogen, methane, carbon dioxide, and other gases with little or no free oxygen. Most of the oxygen would have been trapped in the minerals that make up the crust of the earth, with a large amount being trapped in water.

The atmosphere of the cooling Earth would be a reducing atmosphere, oxygen would have been removed from molecules not added to it, as in an oxidizing atmosphere. Lightening flashes in this primitive atmosphere would have sufficient energy to form molecules out of the hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide molecules. I attended a seminar at the Ohio State University when I was a graduate student there in the 1950s where the subject was the prebiological chemistry of the Earth. These types of reactions were the topic of the discussion and two teams of researchers, one from the University of Chicago and the other from Ohio State demonstrated the lab equipment with which they made complex molecules from mixtures of hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide which they had sealed in large glass globes. The globes had electrodes imbedded in them with which the gas mixtures could be subjected to electrical discharge, like miniature lightening. In the one experiment the resulting molecules were amino acids, the building blocks of proteins and in the other the molecules were porphyrins the building blocks of chlorophyll.

Once DNA, by whatever means, came into the world things changed drastically. DNA cannot only command the surrounding system to help it make copies of itself, it makes a whole lot of other things to go with it. DNA has the instructions to make cells. Cells form the basis of most life as we know it. Cells provide the environment in which DNA replicates itself and which causes the cells themselves to divide. Through evolution, simple cells got complicated and cells began to form organisms that were multicellular, first appearing as colonial forms of the same cell and then in truly multicellular organisms, with cell differentiation.

DNA in the world had the effect of accumulating vast amounts of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen, the principal elements of living organisms. The Earth be came compartmented. The cooling Earth solidified into the lithosphere, (litho = rock), the atmosphere (atmos = gas), the hydrosphere (hydro = water), and the biosphere (bios = life). Each compartment of the Earth is a system. The systems interact to make the system of the Earth. Materials cycle through all the compartments of the Earth. Some of these cycles are fairly well known, such as the hydrological cycle, the carbon cycle and the nitrogen cycle.

The living systems of the earth are composed of ecosystems, ecological systems of living organisms and their inorganic environment that seem to act holistically and to have discernable stages of development. Ecosystems are generally named after the prominent organisms in them.

The earliest form of life found in the fossil record of Earth is the blue-green algae. We know there must have been earlier forms, but these are the ones that survived in the fossil record. The occur in the fossil record in rocks known to be 2-1/2 billion years old. As a student, when I traveled to the Grand Canyon back in 1949, with my botany professor, J. Arthur Herrick, we hiked into the canyon—ten miles of trail to descend 1 mile into the canyon, we passed the layer that contains remnants of the oldest life forms found on Earth—chalky deposits, sitting in igneous rock. When examined under the microscope, the chalky deposits reveal cellular structure.

What do we find now—the land, the air, the water teem with life—life adapted to all habitats in the surface of the Earth. The atmosphere is loaded with cellular materials—fungal and algal spores abound, to say nothing of insects and birds. The oceans are very rich in life forms out to the continental shelf. Beyond the continental shelf, life is present but not as abundant. The continents, even the cold and dry deserts have plentiful life.

In each place where life is found the species of the Earth are adapted to the local conditions and live and reproduce there. Birds that migrate thousands of miles must be adapted in all the places they go—so too for migratory animals on land and in the sea. At no place on Earth is there just one kind of life. There may be places where one dominant life form exists, but along and in conjunction with other life forms. The microorganisms are ubiquitous. They make up about two-thirds of the living substance of the earth with a turn overrate of about 30 minutes. Each place has its plants, animals and its microorganisms.

Naming living systems is an arbitrary process. Groupings of organisms, generally called communities, are usually named for the most conspicuous species. Beech-maple forest, big bluestem prairies etc. Whether on land or in the sea, certain types of organisms seem to be found together and when disturbed the usually but not always regroup in the same way.

The membranes of cells provide a protective environment or cells and cell walls in plants provide additional protection and structure. DNA is a system of self-replicating, self-duplicating molecules which forms a self-generating decision system. DNA can cause the construction of cells which are a higher order system, with the basic decisions being made by the DNA. Higher level systems of cells, colonial and multicellular, again make a still higher order of biological system, with the controlling decisions being made by DNA and by other decision molecules—enzymes—that DNA makes with the assistance of RNA. DNA, RNA, and the protein enzymes form the information and decision assistance system of cellular organisms. At this level all the decisions are metabolic, employing the chemistry and physics of the cells to carry out the work. With higher organisms, the nervous system forms yet another decision system. This time the decision system regulates the behavior of the organism—a higher animal. All decision systems comprising cellular systems, have their as is and precursors in DNA. Even the biochemical, physiological, ecological, psychological, and sociological systems of higher animals have their behavior rooted in DNA. The DNA (as well as other) biological systems will keep replicating themselves as long as the materials to do so are in their environment. Only senescence, lack of materials, and predation stop or slow the process. The rate of reproduction and growth is regulated by the essential factor that is in the least supply. This is Liebig's Law of the Minimum (Liebig, Baron Justus von, 1803-1873, German chemist). The factors of the environment (nutrients, physical, chemical, biological and edaphic factors) serve as a decision system that regulates population growth and is the decision system that together with competition defines ecological systems.

Humans are animals in an ecological system. Humans have evolved along with the other primates and have with them common ancestors. The fact that humans have language and technology complicates the analysis of living systems but not much. We have only to separate those functions of humans, necessary to survive as a species, that are generated and controlled by DNA—genetic based biological behavior—as opposed to those functions, necessary to survive as a species, governed by language and technology and we have the difference. There are no functions of language and technology that are necessary to the survival of the species. Humans as animals can survive without language and technology, not in the style as with them, but they are capable of survival. This is the simple proof that we are animals and our humanness is not in our genes, but the way we use the properties generated by them. Humans and chimpanzees have 98% of their genes in common. The slight differences that allowed our language and technology to arise is what made all the difference in the world.

...Ted Sudia...

© Copyright 1990
Institute for domestic Tranquility