FUSION ENERGY FOUNDATION Newsletter May 1977 NONLINEARITY AND THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES Nonlinearity and the Biological Sciences Fusion EDITORIAL Energy Toward an Interdisciplinary Science Dr. Steven Bardwell 3 Foundation FEATURES The Overlooked Importance of Pasteur Newsletter Warren Hamerman 4 Observations on Dissymmetrical Forces Vol. II, No. 4 May 1977 Louis Pasteur 23 Evolution As a Process of Self-Organization EDITORIAL STAFF Eric Lerner 29 Evolution — Beyond Darwin and Mendel EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Dr. Richard Pollak 42 Dr. Morris Levitt Drosophila Embryology — The Dynamics of Evolution ASSOCIATE EDITOR Ned Rosinsky, MD 54 Dr. Steven Bardwell FUSION RESEARCH NEWS Electron Beam Research Breakthrough at Sandia Lab 60 MANAGING EDITOR Marjorie Hecht MIT's AlcatorNear' Breakeven' in Fusion 60 PRODUCTION EDITORS Los Alamos Lab Achieves Fusion Using Carbon Dioxide Laser 61 Nancy Arnest Biology Research Notes: Christopher Sloan DNA Recombination Research Under Attack 61 The FEF Newsletter is published What's Behind the Saccharin Ban? 61 six times a year by the Fusion Energy Foundation. Editorial and sub­ FUSION POLICY scription offices are at 231 West 29 The Ford Foundation Nuclear Energy Report: Street, New York, N.Y. 10001 Sub­ scriptions are $10 per year or $25 with Carter's No-Energy Program 62 annual membership in FEF. Address inquiries to Editor-in- FEF NEWS HIGHLIGHTS Chief. Box 1943, GPO, New York, N.Y. Stockholm Conference Draws 90 Scientists, 10001. Gov't Officials, Diplomats, and Journalists 63 Memorial Urging Fusion Development Now Before 8 State Legislatures .. 64 The views of the FEF are stated in the The Michigan Fusion Resolution 64 editorial Opinions expressed in signed articles are not necessarily those of the FEF's Levitt Tours Texas 63 FEF directors or the scientific advisory board. Cover. The front cover shows a view of the earth from the Apollo II journey to the moon. Nonlinear cloud for­ mations are visible. The same view is presented schematically on the back cover. Source: NASA Conference on Nonlinearity and the Biological Sciences Sponsored by the Fusion Energy Foundation Panel I 10AM Panel II 2PM Welcoming Address: What is Nonlinearity: The View Genetics and Evolution: from Plasma Physics An Epistemological Critique Dr. Steven Bardwell,Director, Plasma Physics Division. FEF Dr. Richard Pollak, Biological Sciences Division, FEF Neural Ensemble Theory and Hierarchical Sets Global Oscillations and Dr. Walter Freeman. Department of Physiology and Compartmentalization in Embryology Anatomy, University of California, Berkeley Dr. Stuart Kauffman, Department of Biochemistry, University of Pennsylvania Topological Mapping of the Retina onto the Cortex: Functional and Developmental Implications Macromolecular Interactions in Cytoplasm: Dr. Eric Schwartz. New York Medical College The Evidence from Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Dr. Lawrence Minkoff, Downstate Medical School Riemannian Geometry and the Neurological Representation of Time Environmentally Induced Changes Dr. Robert Thatcher, New York Medical College In the Genetics of Ribosomal DNA Dr. Hal Krider, University of Connecticut Geometrical Transformations and The Question of Development Energy Throughput and the Dr. Ned Rosinsky, Biological Sciences Division, FEF Development of Weather Patterns Eric Lerner, FEF Discussion and questions: 12 noon Discussion and questions: 4 PM Dinner: 5 PM Panel 111 6:30 PM Neurology and Psychology: Saturday, May 14 The Politics of Science Dr. Hardin Jones, Donner Laboratory, University oi 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. California, Berkeley Columbia University The Tradition of Louis Pasteur Warren Hamerman, National Executive Committee of U.S. Mathematics Building Room 312 Labor Party New York City Discussion and questions: 8 PM Admission Corporation For more information, call or write: Representatives $50 Individuals $10 Fusion Energy Foundation Students $ 5 Biological Sciences Division Box 1943 GPO Pre-registration forms can be found on the New York, N.Y. 10001 magazine insert card Tel. (212) 563-8645 EDITORIAL Toward an Interdisciplinary Science This issue of the Fusion Energy Foundation dynamics and a vast experience with linear systems, Newsletter, "Nonlinearity and the Biological Scien­ every physicist either would disregard any experi­ ces," marks the FEF's first public step into the mental evidence in that direction ("It is an anomaly,'' biological sciences. 'It requires such special initial conditions that it is As Newsletter editor I am tremendously excited by irrelevant for global processes," etc.) or, would the establishment of the Biological Sciences section of regard all nonentropic phenomena as a fluctuation the FEF. It is actually as a plasma physicist that I am from the underlying entropic evolution of the universe most enthusiastic about the formation of a group of as a whole. biologists, agronomists, and medical doctors who are A hard look at the pervasiveness of the self- collaborating with the Foundation. I am convinced generated, increasingly complex systems that occur that the most difficult and fundamental problems in in biology, however, make the physicists' natural the physical sciences, and plasma physics in particu­ reaction suspect. Perhaps they themselves abstract lar, are closely related to those in the biological from the most important feature of all matter — living sciences, and that contrary to common belief, the bio­ and nonliving? logical sciences are more advanced in recognizing Both physicists and biologists object that it is these fundamental problems than the physical exactly the question of energy densities (or, more sciences. In fact, physical scientists and engineers narrowly, temperature) that justifies a division of the have already derived the most from the growing universe into physical and biological processes. A common work with these biological scientists. plasma is so hot, and living processes can occur only in a very restricted range of temperatures — how can Self-Organizing Phenomena they share the same physics? The point that biology In all of these sciences, the central unsolved prob­ shows so effectively is that there is no a priori energy lem is that of self-organizing phenomena. The self- scale. Rather, the energy-density scale for each ordering behavior of living systems is obvious; and process or subprocess is defined internally, or geo­ the problems such behavior presents in describing metrically (in a Riemannian sense). This geometri- reproduction, differentiation, cell biology, neuro­ zation is the thoroughgoing coherence between the physiology, and evolution are well known. Not so well phenomena in the biological sciences and in physics. A known is the fact (and longtime contention of the dynamic sense of the intrinsic geometry of a process FEF) that conceptually similar problems are posed of development — the methodology that physics is still by the highly nonlinear, self-organizing phenomena of struggling with — comes naturally out of a study of solitons, vortices, self-generated magnetic fields (and life. many others) in high-temperature, high-density An ongoing and close collaboration between the bio­ plasmas. logical and physical sciences is essential. As soon as This similarity between the biological sciences and each recognize the intersection of mutual study of non- plasma physics is no longer speculation. Not only are linearity and self-ordered systems, the cross-ferti­ the mathematical features of the most advanced lization between the two approaches to the same uni­ theoretical biology strikingly similar to those used to verse will confront the fundamental difficulties in describe self-organizing phenomena in physics and each. This newsletter is the FEF's first contribution to chemistry (See the article by Ned Rosinsky in this this interdisciplinary science. issue); more important, the conceptual insights that Georg Cantor, the nineteenth century mathe­ exist in the biological sciences have proved to be matician noted the basic methodological point in­ tremendously provocative for the solution of similar volved: "The coherence of the two realities (the living problems in plasma physics. and nonliving —ed.) has its true foundation in the In the work I have done with the Fusion Energy unity of the all, to which we ourselves belong as well." Foundation, for example, the contribution from biol­ This rigorous methodology — that the entire uni­ ogy to the dynamics of nonlinear, self-ordered verse must be subject to description by the same pro­ phenomena is immense. How is one to understand the cess — is the systematic basis for analogies between fact that almost every high-energy plasma has a ten­ the physical sciences and the life sciences. If such dency to concentrate its energy into highly structured analogies do not exist, then our science is at fault. bunches? From the point of view of contemporary physics, such a process, or direction of evolution, is almost incomprehensible in a systematic way: Based on an understanding of the Second Law of Thermo­ —Dr. Steven Bardwell FEF NEWSLETTER 3 The Overlooked importance of Pasteur Warren Hamerman 4 FEF NEWSLETTER INTRODUCTION The universe is a dissymmetrical totality, and I am in­ clined to think that life, such as it is manifested to us, is a function of the dissymmetry of the universe or the consequences which it produces * (1874) In returning afresh to review the scientific contributions ofI without air" implies a notion of evolution that proceeds from Louis Pasteur (1822-95), I intend to reopen several fun­ the self-development