WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY PONTE News Journal Update - (en) Italy, Ponte: Life is written nowhere by msette (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 In one of the best-known scenes of Jurassic Park, the patron of the

cloned dinosaur park shows his guests a cartoon that explains to the
public how they managed to reconstruct the DNA of these prehistoric
creatures. The protagonist of the cartoon is Mister DNA, a character
with double helix features who begins to tell the story: "a single drop
of your blood contains billions of DNA strands, the bricks with which
life is built. A strand of DNA like me constitutes the construction
project of a living being". ---- That life is written in the DNA is on
the other hand one of the most popular and widespread conceptions when
it comes to genetics. According to the biologist Jean-Jacques Kupiec,
however, things could be different. Her latest book, The Anarchist
Concept of the Living, released this year by Elèuthera (with a
translation by Carlo Milani), seeks to dismantle the idea that DNA is a
project for the construction of the living and criticizes what Evelyn
Fox Keller calls it "the discourse of genetics".

The idea is radical, discussed and perhaps ignored at times, but in
recent years it has moved beyond epistemological theory, beyond the
criticism of a science, and has given rise to a series of experimental
studies in biology, in the French area , peer-reviewed publications  .

It is a suggestion that has taken its steps from afar, since the
beginning of the 1980s. Kupiec began his career as a molecular biologist
at the Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale in
Paris. "I worked in the laboratory on viruses, DNA, RNA and proteins" he
tells me, "and I have cloned entire genomes of viruses in my career". In
the meantime he carried on reflections on biology, Darwinism, genetics,
until towards the end of his career he dedicated himself only to
epistemological practice, at the Cavaillès centerof the Normal School of
Paris. Starting from the differentiation of cells and their
organization, Kupiec has developed an epistemological question. Does DNA
really determine, give instructions, put order in the living? Or does it
participate in a more complex process, involving chance and the
adaptation of cells to their environment?

Already epigenetics gives a role to the influence of the environment in
the expression of genes. This young science studies the molecular
alterations that occur on the DNA but which do not modify its sequence,
alterations capable of favoring or preventing the expression of a gene
and due to the environment: an environmental trauma such as being living
in a famine , for example, it would leave its mark on the surface of
DNA. But Kupiec goes further.

For Kupiec the expression of genes is due to chance, it is stochastic,
and the process which leads from the fertilized egg to the embryo,
therefore to the individual (we call it ontogenesis), "is not a
diversification of the action of genes, but a reduction of their
potential for variability" (we will come back to it later). On this
hypothesis he collaborated experimentally with several researchers,
including the physicist Bertrand Laforge and the molecular biologist
Olivier Gandrillon. In 2009, another text written by him with Pierre
Sonigo, a biologist, was already published in Italy, quoted several
times by Bruno Latour . The title was bold, Neither God nor genome: for
a new theory of heredity(Elèuthera), which took up the anarchist adage
"neither God nor master".

Kupiec continues in the same vein, crosses and deconstructs the history
of the discourse of genetics and puts forward an "anarchist Darwinist"
model of the living, up to re-discussing the concept of species: what
are the boundaries between one species and another? does the species
exist or is it just a useful concept for our catalogues? With Kupiec we
talk about this, the flow of the living or determinism, chance, genes.

YOU TALK ABOUT THE DETERMINISTIC THEORY OF GENETICS. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Genetics says that we are determined by genes. With molecular biology,
which came later, the concept of a genetic program appeared. It has been
said: genes form a genetic program, in DNA, a program which governs the
functioning of living beings and which above all governs embryonic
development, that is, how from the fertilized egg, a single cell, the
embryo is built, made of billions of cells, which in turn develops into
an adult; everything governed by a program. This is the determinism of
genetics: the development of the individual is programmed even before it
exists.

AS THE STORY ALMOST SEEMS LIKE THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN, "IN THE
BEGINNING WAS THE LOGOS AND THE LOGOS WAS WITH GOD..."
But it is so: it is a materialist version, apparently, but of a much
older idealist theory. In physics, man believed himself to be the center
of the physical universe and it took Galileo and then others to overturn
this idea. In biology it is imagined that the adult individual is the
center and purpose of biology itself. When we look at the developing
embryo, our idea is that each of the cells does not exist by itself hic
et  nunc, here and now, but exists in view of a future project which is
the adult, that totality that we ourselves are. In short, it is said
that there is a plan of the organism which takes place during
development, for a purpose. Theory is also a finalist. It is a much
older ontology: that of Aristotle's "form", the eidos. The formal cause
which is what implements, and is also the project with an end; and the
genetic program is the same thing and its goal is to construct being. If
we talk to a geneticist, he'll say no, things are actually more
complicated but that double discourse of genetics I was talking about
earlier has been going on for a century. Instead, the theory I propose
is that cells initially exist on their own, reacting to their local
conditions of existence, here and now. It is through the social
relationships between cells that an individual is built. We are
convinced that it is only us, but we are cell companies.

WE OFTEN READ IN THE NEWSPAPER HEADLINES: DISCOVERED THE GENE OF...
FOLLOWED BY ANYTHING: DISEASES, BEHAVIORS, DISTINCTIVE TRAITS. ON
GOOGLE, IN ITALIAN, 4 MILLION RESULTS ARE OBTAINED FOR THE PHRASE "FOUND
THE GENE". WHAT IS THE IDEA BEHIND THIS TRUST? WHY DO WE LIKE TO THINK
THAT OUR GENES MAY BE RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERY TRAIT OF OUR LIVES?
I'll go straight to the point, brutal, even if it should be explored: I
think it's an ideology of genetics that is widespread in society. There
is a natural order that spreads through society and everyone is in their
place according to the genes they have. Of course, geneticists don't say
this, but they are the consequences of the theory. However, genetics is
an explanation that has been useful for biologists to have a framework
to work within, so we need to take a step back and understand what it
is. It is a discourse that is based on what geneticists call laws,
Mendel's laws. We all heard about them, I think, when we went to school:
it's the story of peas and Mendel the monk who made hybrids with them.
They are very precise laws and they say that beings - at the beginning,

The seeds of the peas were smooth or wrinkled, people are tall or short,
have this or that color of skin, eyes, etc. In these laws the
environment is not there. We have known for some time that this is not
the case and the experiences for which those laws do not work have
multiplied. An attempt has therefore been made to give compromise
explanations, such as: the gene has something to do with it but also the
environment and geneticists say that we are not determined only by
genes, but there are, for example, epigenetic factors. Thus two
discourses of genetics coexist: genetics in the strong, causal sense,
that of Mendel's laws, and a weak conception of genetics, epigenetics.
Today, on the one hand we talk more and more about genetics in the weak
sense, genetics and epigenetics, but then we go back to saying: "here is
the gene for schizophrenia, here is the gene for that other
disease".that gene.

Yet in the last ten years it was claimed to know well that it is not
only genes that count, but that there is systems biology. We constantly
oscillate between the two discourses. Why? My opinion is because there
is an underlying ideology that has a role in society. There is a
political and media level, and then a deeper, philosophical level that
concerns the fear of giving up on the idea that there are stable forms
underlying everything. The entire Middle Ages had already discussed it,
in what we call the "dispute of universals": do species really exist or
not, are they just names? Because giving up these forms means giving up
a species identity that puts us at the top of creation. It is the least
scientific and least experimental aspect of my work, but we are forced
to ask whether this is the case.

ISN'T THERE PERHAPS IN GENETICS A DISCOURSE SIMILAR TO WHAT IS VALID FOR
PHYSICS? THERE WE HAVE ON THE ONE HAND WE HAVE RELATIVITY, ON THE OTHER
WE HAVE QUANTUM MECHANICS. EFFORTS HAVE BEEN MADE FOR YEARS TO UNIFY THE
TWO THEORIES, BUT IN THE MEANTIME THEY WORK IN THEIR DOMAINS AND
THEREFORE WE ARE TOLD, WELL WE CAN PROCEED ANYWAY. HERE INSTEAD THERE IS
THE GENETIC THEORY AND THERE IS EPIGENETICS, A FIELD THAT SEEMS
PROMISING. IN ANTICANCER RESEARCH, FOR EXAMPLE, DRUGS ARE BEING TESTED
THAT INTERVENE PRECISELY ON THOSE MOLECULAR ALTERATIONS ON THE SURFACE
OF DNA, STUDIED BY EPIGENETICS. ISN'T IT INSTEAD THAT THE "DISCUSSION OF
GENETICS", WHICH YOU CONTEST, HOLDS UP BECAUSE BASICALLY IT WORKS?
Real. Biotechnologies exist and are effective, I won't deny it. Of
course, if we have observed DNA and nuclei it is thanks to the genetic
theory. But I think it's also thanks to the general technological
development that allows us to look at the living with ever more precise
instruments. The fact is that we can have technical effectiveness even
with an erroneous theory. The Romans knew how to make very effective
catapults, but they didn't know about gravity or mechanics, it was
pre-Galilean physics. I think the same is true. Here we have certain
empirical knowledge that develops and leads to a technical know-how,
like a car mechanic who is capable of excellently repairing the
functioning of a car, or of improving it. So biotechnologies work, of
course, and then, however, we put them against genetics, that is, they
serve to demonstrate that this works.

Then I think of another field of research: cancer, a problem linked to
multi-cellularity. In history we isolated, so to speak, the first
"cancer gene" in 1976, thanks to two researchers, Varmus and Bishop, who
took the Nobel. When it was discovered it was said that it was
extraordinary and that we would find the cause of the cancer. It didn't
happen that way. Today we pile up new cancer genes, another and another,
and we're not so sure anymore. However, there have been advances in the
treatment of diseases, treatments based on empirical knowledge, for
example improved radiation, chemical treatments. And yet 45 years have
passed and look today at the "cancer genes": all genes are cancer genes
and we still haven't figured it out.

HE CALLS IT "ANARCHY OF THE LIVING". WHY AND IN WHAT WAY ARE THESE
"CELLULAR SOCIETIES" ANARCHIST IN YOUR OPINION?
I think it is literally an anarchist conception: anarchy means without
archos , 'power', but also without arche, i.e. 'original principle',
what comes first. In an individual there are billions of cells, all
derived from a single cell, the fertilized egg, which multiplies,
generating millions of cells, and then billions and they are all
different and specialize: muscle, heart, nerve, brain , of blood. The
big question is how does this happen, how do they specialize and
organize themselves? In today's genetic theory the role of DNA is that
of a directing guiding principle that is prior to us and all development
is governed by genetic information. Instead, the conception that I
develop affirms that there is no principle of order, but that cellular
societies organize themselves on the basis of what happens locally. The
cells - I simplify - according to a probabilistic process express
proteins; At first, they grope, so to speak. When they find the right
combination, that is, the genes that allow them to be in relationship
with their environment, they stabilize.

A cell needs many things in order to survive, metabolites. Let's imagine
a cell alone: it has direct access to the nutrients found in its
environment. But if it multiplies, a small sphere of cells is born and
we will have cells outside the embryo and cells inside it. The cells
inside will no longer have access to the nutrients of the external
environment, but only to what is transmitted by the other cells on the
surface. So the more the population grows, the more the cells have to
change, not because there is a program but because the expression of
their genes can change randomly and this expression is selected by the
conditions of the internal environment, by its constraints. Thanks to
this random process they adapt to their internal environment and on the
basis of this decentralised, local,

Therefore each cell does not need a principle that directs it, but each
cell is dependent on what the others do, therefore there are
constraints, degrees of freedom, relationships, because there are
exchanges between cells that are formed, as in a society. All these
exchanges are simply not directed by a central state, which is really a
comparison used by the physicist Schrödinger, also involved in biology.
In his book What is life , released in 1944 and considered a forerunner
of molecular biology, he compares chromosomes to the central offices of
a government.

And instead I maintain that there is no government. That is why it is an
anarchist conception. There are many versions of anarchy, it's a word
with variable geometries, but it's not about absolute freedom or perfect
individualism. I refer to the conception of the philosopher and
naturalist Kropotkin who explained that even Robinson Crusoe on his
island was not entirely free, because there was an environment and
relationships with this and other beings.

AND WHAT IS DNA, IF IT IS NOT A PRINCIPLE OF ORDER?
DNA exists and it has a role. It is evident that it plays a role in the
manufacture of proteins, and this is an acquisition of molecular
biology. I believe that the expression of genes - we usually talk about
gene expression, but I prefer to talk about DNA sequences that make it
possible to manufacture proteins, because gene is a very loaded concept
- happens at random, i.e. a gene always has a probability of expressing
itself , more or less. The stimuli, what the DNA receives from the cell
which in turn receives from the outside, do not induce the production of
proteins, but stabilize something that is initially produced according
to chance.

In the cell nucleus, the DNA is not naked, but is in interaction with
other molecules and a structure is formed which we call chromatin.
Depending on the configuration, the manufacture of a protein may or may
not occur in a certain region of the DNA. But this structure is not
rigid, it moves continuously because all molecular, physical and
chemical interactions are fundamentally random. Therefore, spontaneously
the DNA in the chromatin can express random genes and configurations are
formed which stabilize thanks to the environment of the nucleus, which
is placed in the environment of the cell, placed in that of the
individual, placed in the ecosystem.

With the anarchist theory we can therefore make a precise prediction:
when cells differentiate they will produce proteins at random and then,
once the right combination has been found, they will adapt, stabilize
and produce only those that allow them to be related to the environment.
Today we have the technical tools to observe cells one by one and which
gene is expressed and at which level of expression; then we can do a
statistical treatment and see in a population of cells what is the
variability of gene expression, the variance. If we measure the
variability of protein manufacturing we can predict a peak first,
followed by a restriction, which corresponds to the phase of adaptation
to the environment. We tested this prediction with a team of molecular
biologists, they are published works. Many biologists object that there
is a margin of random fluctuation in a phenomenon which remains in fact
deterministic, that is, noise. But if it were noise it would have to be
constant over time, and instead when we study differentiation we see
that there is a peak.

UNDER ONE OF HIS VIDEO INTERVIEWS ON YOUTUBE, IN WHICH HE EXPLAINS THESE
THINGS, I FOUND A CRITICAL COMMENT, WHICH I IMAGINE MANY WILL ADDRESS.
RECITE: CONFUSE THE CASE WITH WHAT WE DON'T KNOW. I PLAY DEVIL'S
ADVOCATE: WHAT IF THAT WERE THE CASE?
It's a question I talk about in the book. There are people who wonder if
the case is ontological, or if it is the limit of our knowledge. The
debate is ancient and even Einstein debated it with the theorists of
quantum mechanics, when he told them that God does not play dice, and
therefore that chance was only the limit of what we still don't know.

My first impression is that random variation is constitutive of the
world, and I think it is Darwin who first introduced such a theory. But
I don't think we will settle the debate now. On the other hand, it
doesn't matter: we know today that there are many things in nature that
we cannot treat except in a probabilistic way. Let's be clear: when we
say that a system is probabilistic, we are not saying that it is chaotic
and that there are no material conditions which determine the
probabilities; in a die the probability is given by the structure of the
die. The material conditions of existence and production of the
phenomena determine the probabilities and thus certain regularities
appear, an average with a variance. If you roll a die, the die follows
physical laws but it is easier to study it probabilistically. Perhaps
one day we will have instruments so precise as to predict all possible
trajectories, but today the dice is even the archetype of the
probabilistic phenomenon. This is enough for me at the moment: to deal
with cases in which we have cells, molecules, macromolecules, and what
happens in such complexity, we cannot do otherwise. It has been
experimentally demonstrated that there is a variability in the
expression of genes and to describe it, I believe, we are forced to use
probabilistic models. Then, if it is the limit of our ignorance, it may
be, but within two hundred years I will be gone, then we will leave the
discussion to our descendants. and what happens in such complexity, we
cannot do otherwise. It has been experimentally demonstrated that there
is a variability in the expression of genes and to describe it, I
believe, we are forced to use probabilistic models. Then, if it is the
limit of our ignorance, it may be, but within two hundred years I will
be gone, then we will leave the discussion to our descendants. and what
happens in such complexity, we cannot do otherwise. It has been
experimentally demonstrated that there is a variability in the
expression of genes and to describe it, I believe, we are forced to use
probabilistic models. Then, if it is the limit of our ignorance, it may
be, but within two hundred years I will be gone, then we will leave the
discussion to our descendants.

IN HIS BOOK HE TELLS OF A BEING IMAGINED BY THE MATHEMATICIAN LAPLACE,
THE DEMON OF LAPLACE, CAPABLE OF SEEING THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
TOGETHER. ACCORDING TO THE SCIENTIST, THE DEMON WOULD SEE THE WHOLE
UNIVERSE SUMMARIZED IN A SINGLE FORMULA. INSTEAD, YOU SPEAK OF
FUNDAMENTAL VARIATION: WHAT DO YOU THINK THE DEMON SEES?
We often think of objects that have a shape and are static: here is the
cup of coffee where I drank my Italian coffee. But reality is in motion
and varies. Heraclitus said you can never bathe in the same river. It's
something counter-intuitive: I think movement comes first, not being
static. The structure of reality is fluctuating, there is no
determinism, there is fundamental random variation and yet there are
material conditions that complicate the matter.

IN THIS REGARD, HE WRITES THAT "THE LIVING IS A CONTINUOUS FLOW THAT
MAKES BEINGS VARY" AND THAT THIS IS THE MOST RADICAL ASPECT OF DARWIN.
IN THE COMMON IMAGINATION, WE OFTEN CONNECT DARWIN TO THE CONCEPT OF
SPECIES, A CONCEPT THAT HOWEVER HAS POROUS BOUNDARIES IF IT IS NOT A
HEADACHE.
Yes, if we read Darwin, it is clear to us that he was not one of those
who thought classifications were objective. Indeed, he was a nominalist,
that is, he thought that classifications are abstractions, and he says
so explicitly. Genetics has instead reintroduced the realism of the
species, i.e. the species is a set of individuals who share the same
genes. This way of thinking was there before Darwin and Darwin had set
it aside altogether. But we got rid of this part of his thinking, this
aspect which is the most subversive has been lost.

The question is why? Darwin with his nominalism said that species do not
exist objectively. Well, I think that abandoning the idea of
essentialism means abandoning the idea that we as human beings have a
human essence. Here, as Gaston Bachelard said, an epistemological
obstacle or what I call the "blind spot of biology" emerges: it is the
bringing into play of our human identity as a human species. And this
profoundly calls into question the privileged status that we have forged
and our place in the ecosystem.

PROFESSOR, YOU WRITE THAT WE SEE OURSELVES AS THE FINALITY OF THE LIVING
AND WE ARE BLIND TO CELLULAR EXISTENCES. PERHAPS THEN THE DEFENSE OF A
DETERMINIST IDEA IS ALSO A DEFENSE OF MAN AND THE ORDER OF SPECIES?
Yes, of course, against other species, but also a defense of us as
individuals. Because we find it hard to accept the idea that there are
billions of small autonomous individuals in us, who above all live for
themselves and not for us. Who don't care about us, they don't even know
we exist.

But the question makes me think further, in relation to the political
and ideological aspect we mentioned. In the 1800s we realized that human
beings were made of cells - theory we call cell theory. In the stages of
development of this theory, a German biologist, Rudolf Virchow, wrote a
very important book, considered as the definitive version of the cell
theory. He too compared groups of cells to a society, he wrote that we
are full of small individuals and that there is a social life. Having
said that, however, he did not add what kind of society it was, so to
speak. But, clearly, since the beginning of the theory, authoritarian
and hierarchical metaphors have asserted themselves in a hegemonic
manner. There is Schrödinger's comparison made earlier but we could
multiply the quotations. In short, there is an interference: our
societies are hierarchical societies, whether they are more or less
democratic or authoritarian, and I think this hegemony has perhaps
influenced the thinking of scientists. So much so that when we think of
the living, we automatically think of a hierarchical society. So what
happens is this: it's been 150 years since all the metaphors to describe
the living are authoritarian, but if you propose that no, cells are
anarchic, that they function in another way, mutualistic, they reply: oh
there, you're doing politics. As long as we use reactionary metaphors,
so to speak, there are no problems and it seems normal. Instead, I
believe that we must conceive the living otherwise. So much so that when
we think of the living, we automatically think of a hierarchical
society. So what happens is this: it's been 150 years since all the
metaphors to describe the living are authoritarian, but if you propose
that no, cells are anarchic, that they function in another way,
mutualistic, they reply: oh there, you're doing politics. As long as we
use reactionary metaphors, so to speak, there are no problems and it
seems normal. Instead, I believe that we must conceive the living
otherwise. So much so that when we think of the living, we automatically
think of a hierarchical society. So what happens is this: it's been 150
years since all the metaphors to describe the living are authoritarian,
but if you propose that no, cells are anarchic, that they function in
another way, mutualistic, they reply: oh there, you're doing politics.
As long as we use reactionary metaphors, so to speak, there are no
problems and it seems normal. Instead, I believe that we must conceive
the living otherwise. so to speak, reactionary there is no problem and
it seems normal. Instead, I believe that we must conceive the living
otherwise. so to speak, reactionary there is no problem and it seems
normal. Instead, I believe that we must conceive the living otherwise.

ALONGSIDE DARWIN, YOU REFER TO ANOTHER 19TH-CENTURY SCHOLAR, THE
PHYSICIAN CLAUDE BERNARD, AND HIS DECENTRALIZED VISION OF THE BODY
WHEREBY LIFE RESIDES IN EVERY CELL AND IS NOT CENTRALIZED ANYWHERE.
BERNARD WRITES "WHAT DEFINES THE LIVING IS TO HAVE AN INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT".
Claude Bernard, experimenter and theorist, has done many things and his
work is not homogeneous, but he says some things that interest me. One
of Bernard's great conceptual inventions is the concept of the "inner
environment". Today it has been reduced, more often than not, to the
idea of homeostasis, i.e. simplifying to the fact that the inner
environment remains constant. But he rather observed above all that the
cells adapt to their internal environment, even if he did not think that
there was a random variation in the functioning of the cells. Let's say,
I took Darwin's general principles in the idea of how cells function in
relation to the internal environment, introduced by Bernard.

IT SEEMS TO BECOME A MATTER OF ECOLOGY.
Exactly. There are passages where Claude Bernard makes the comparison
with the economy: organs would be factories that supply their neighbors
with certain products and exchanges are created and this is how the
organism is built. In the book Neither god nor genome that I wrote with
Pierre Sonigo, Pierre instead developed the idea that we are dealing
with ecology, making an analogy precisely with ecosystems. It is as if
there is an internal ecosystem. And the ecosystem is a concept that we
find initially already in Darwin, even if he didn't use this word, but
what he described was that.

FACED WITH THIS IDEA OF THE LIVING, SHOULD WE RETHINK CANCER? I KNOW YOU
AND OTHERS HAVE TRIED TO WORK ON THE HYPOTHESIS .
Yes, with a physicist colleague, Bertrand Laforge, we have done some
modeling on this question - a model is obviously a simplification that
tries to capture certain pertinent traits for understanding reality. So
we used a cellular automaton, not real cells: a computer experience
which, however, can serve as a thought experiment. We wondered if cells
that behave with the anarchist Darwinist model are capable of creating
organized structures like tissues and we observed that, even with random
gene functioning, cells create organized structures that look like
tissues. Somehow a balance is achieved between a random tendency and the
selection made by the environment. Not only that, by creating a
perturbation, modifying certain parameters of the simulation, cell
proliferation resumed and states that resembled cancerous tissue were
formed. This allows us to think of the question of cancer differently:
that is, not simply as mutations in a gene, but rather as a balance that
is upset for various reasons. There is an ecosystem in us and when there
is an accident, an imbalance in this ecosystem it can happen that one
species proliferates more than another, as happens outside of us in
ecosystems. I think this is important, because we are asked what is the
point of conceiving the living differently. There is an ecosystem in us
and when there is an accident, an imbalance in this ecosystem it can
happen that one species proliferates more than another, as happens
outside of us in ecosystems. I think this is important, because we are
asked what is the point of conceiving the living differently. There is
an ecosystem in us and when there is an accident, an imbalance in this
ecosystem it can happen that one species proliferates more than another,
as happens outside of us in ecosystems. I think this is important,
because we are asked what is the point of conceiving the living differently.

https://ponte.noblogs.org/2023/3363/la-vita-non-e-scritta-da-nessuna-parte/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca