As often happens to me, two trains of thought tend to talk to one another with interesting results. (Or perhaps, just give rise to exciting train-wrecks.) If you look at my diaries page, you will see that posts about Micro-agriculture are intermixed with posts about neoliberalism. You may also recall that the first sentence of the overview of the micro-ag diary series was: "Biology and economics are intertwined on many levels." Diary #3 is going to talk about new evidence that makes the modern synthesis (that DNA is in complete control) incomplete and, therefore, obsolete. That is not to say the modern synthesis is wrong, but merely that it was missing some new facts.
In this prequel to Diary #3, "The End of DNA Dictatorship", I will discuss an experiment performed on DNA in 1967, which should be as famous as Pastuer's experimental proof of his germ theory. This experiment should begin to pry your mind loose from the grip of DNA dictatorship. But, it also is extremely relevant to economic theory and the mess on Wall Street. More below the fold.
1. Introducing the Structuralists
One of the new approaches to evolution is called "structuralism". I will let a hard-core Darwinist, Richard Dawkins, explain why the evidence the structuralists bring to the theoretical argument must be respected:
The theory of form I presume dates back to D'Arcy Thompson...Now D'Arcy Thompson and other people who stress the word form emphasize the laws of physics...I see a lot of value in that kind of approach. It is something we can't as biologists afford to neglect...So I don't see any conflict at all between the theory of natural selection -- the gene-centered theory of natural selection, I should say -- and the theory of form. We need both. We need both. And it is disingenuous to present the one as antagonistic to the other.
- Richard Dawkins in an interview with Scoop
I agree with Dawkins that both DNA and form are components of both evolution and living systems. So, I have left out Dawkin's inaccurate shots at the structuralists; just as I will leave out the inaccurate return fire from the structuralists. Nevertheless, in addition upgrading the importance of form, it is necessary to downgrade the importance of DNA. Its also important to note, as Dawkins acknowledges, that the structuralist argument is from physics - it is not some kind of fuzzy thinking or post-modern logic-chopping.
I think everyone is by now familiar with the idea that our bodies are constantly regenerating themselves (e.g., some of your atoms were part of the body of famous historical personage X). The idea that the matter in our bodies "turns over" raises the important question of how the form is maintained. And it is here where the structuralists stick their first piton into the cliff face of the modern synthesis:
What does not change in organisms are certain aspects of the organization of the materials - their dynamic relationships, the way they are arranged in space, and the patterns of change they undergo in time. Organisms are dynamic fields...
The hereditary material plays a very important role in stabilizing certain aspects of this spatial and temporal order...But the focus of my inquiry now is on the nature of the generative field, which is what was left out of Weismann's scheme. It is the organized context within which inherited particulars act, and without which they can have no effect. Putting this back into biology leads to a new definition of an organism as the fundamental unit of life.
- Brian Goodwin, "How the Leopard Changed Its Spots" (1994)
2. DNA in a test tube is VERY selfish
Now that you are aware of the direction from which the rollback of DNA dictatorship is coming, its time to hammer in a very big piton:
The DNA of an organism is not self-replicating; it is not an independent "replicator". The only way in which DNA can be accurately and completely replicated is in the context of a dividing cell; that is to say, it is the cell which reproduces.
In a classic experiment, Spiegelman in 1967 showed what happens to a molecular replicating system in a test tube, without any cellular organization around it. The replicating molecules (the nucleic acid templates) require and energy source, building blocks (i.e., nucleotide bases), and an enzyme to help the polymerization process that is involved in self-copying of the templates. Then away it goes, making more copies of the specific nucleotide sequences that define the initial templates.
But the interesting result was that these initial templates did not stay the same; they were not accurately copied. They got shorter and shorter until they reached the minimal size compatible with the sequence retaining self-copying properties. And as they got shorter, the copying process went faster. So what happened was natural selection in a test tube: the shorter templates copied themselves faster and became more numerous, while the larger ones were gradually eliminated.
This looks like Darwinian evolution in a test tube. But the interesting result was that this evolution went one way: toward greater simplicity. Actual evolution tends to go toward greater complexity, species becoming more elaborate in their structure and behavior, though the process can also go in reverse, toward simplicity. But DNA on its own can go nowhere but toward greater simplicity. In order for the evolution of complexity to occur, DNA has to be within a cellular context; the whole system evolves as a reproducing unit. So the notion of an autonomous replicator...turns out to be an incorrect abstraction.
- Brian Goodwin, "How the Leopard Changed Its Spots", pp 35-6 (1994)
Now, I make a point of avoiding the creationist literature; but I would bet that this experiment would be appreciated, and distorted, by those "teach the controversy" agitprop artists. Of course, Goodwin makes the point that to get DNA to do this, you must place it in extremely unnatural, i.e., man-made conditions. Nevertheless, it is the best counter-example to DNA dictatorship that I have come across.
My goal, however, is not to deny evolution, but to extend the number of factors that are acted upon by natural selection beyond just DNA. The structuralists want to add the context of the cell to the selection. (As we shall see in Diary#3, this context includes epigenetic factors that can remember the conditions in the womb.) Structuralists see the modern synthesis as "reductionism".
This is an emergent property of life that is not explained by the properties of the molecules out of which organisms are made, for molecules do not have the capacity to make a whole from a part. DNA and RNA can make copies of themselves under particular conditions, but this is a self-copying process, not one in which a more complex whole is generated from a part. This is a principal reason organisms cannot be reduced to their genes or their molecules. The particular type of organization that exists in the dynamic interplay of the molecular parts of an organism, which I have called a morphogenetic or developmental field, is always engaged in making and remaking itself in life cycles..."
- Brian Goodwin, "How the Leopard Changed Its Spots", p 176 (1994)
Extreme, and unjustified, reductionism is always a powerful tool in the armament of authoritarianism, which is why I refer pejoratively to "DNA dictatorship".
Historians of Darwin's theory readily acknowledge that he was immersed in the dog-eat-dog emergence of industrial capitalism in Britain. Many people have suggested that Darwin unconsciously projected the brutal, authoritarian competition of the society around him onto nature. Motivations aside, right wing biological popularizers - from the wretched Herbert Spencer forward - have preached that nature runs on brutality and conquest. However, I simply don't have the space to get into the most obnoxious, authoritarian, reductionist psuedo-science: the misapplication of sociobiology to human culture. (OTOH, I did make space for a really blow-your-mind theory of the origins of life: check out the "Extra Material" at the end.)
Now that we've set the stage with the fabulous "DNA in a test tube" experiment, we need to do some groundwork on the economics side before moving on to the other half of my title: "deals on Wall St."
3. Similarities between biology and economics
In my overview, I quoted the economist, Alfred Marshall, that economics was more about biology than about physics. Now, I want to quote an economic historian who says that corporations are the opposite of markets. The historian is Fernand Braudel, one of the main creators of the French "annales" school of history. His work is way too long to quote, but the essence is captured in an essay "Markets, Anti-Markets, and Network Economics" (EDIT: correct URL!, 4/16/09) by Manuel DeLanda. In this short and readable essay, you get the flavor for the Braudel's argument that primitive markets emerge naturally, and are then hijacked by corporate entities. The ability of Braudel's approach - to differentiate betweem corporatism and natural markets - is critical to any successful political rollback of corporate power.
The DeLanda essay is great because it not only summarizes Braudel, but it also connects his ideas to Complexity Theory. Classical, neoliberal economics really started to lose mathematical credibility when the "network effect" people got on its case in the early 1990s. With the Internet, there was a huge recognition that high-tech markets were cases of increasing returns to scale and network effects, most famously "lock-in". Lock-in basically says that the more market share you have in a networked world, the more market share you get (i.e., positive feedback). The most commonly cited example of lock-in was the Qwerty keyboard - an infamously inferior, but dominant standard.
Classical economists were terrified by positive returns, as it ruined completely their ludicrous equilibrium, at the margin models. But, the cat has been out of the bag ever since, and emergence has become a buzzword in biology and complexity theory.
The result has been a merging of the study of biological and economic systems, based on their commonalities as "far from equilibrium" systems and their shared use of the mathematical tools of complexity theory. As you can imagine, detailing the similarities would be a diary in itself. So, I will just give put two outlines side by side:
BIOLOGY (Goodwin)
A. Metabolism, cell shape develops automatically due to physics/chemistry
B. Cell nucleus (DNA) has taken control of cell development/metabolism
But, DNA does not have enough info to completely determine organism
Rest of info emerges from interaction with environment
C. In course of development, genome pushes cells onto certain pathway
Once on a path, cell locked into certain course of development
ECONOMICS (Braudel)
A. Markets develop locally and automatically
B. Corporatism takes over markets that already exist (neoliberalism emerges)
Finance capitalists buy their way in with credit
They piggy-back on top of the market economy
They invest in "whatever" for maximum profit
Credit, Commerce, Industry
C. After taking over, corporatism sets terms of trade
Takes the best deals for itself (privatize profit; socialize loss)
Forces (locks in) the rest of the economy to remain in supplier mode
You may recall that in my last diary, on neoliberalism, I discussed the dictatorial approach of the banks to NYC in 1975, Mexico in 1984, etc. The facts support the thesis that banks have become a control system that places itself "above" the naturally-arising "metabolism" of the economy. If you don't think the similarities here are compelling, the application of these ideas in the next section will be unconvincing to you.
4. Deals on Wall St. are like DNA in a test tube
Well, you knew that was coming, didn't you?
If you have been paying attention, I should be able to complete my analogy by simply rewording Goodwin's story about the DNA experiment from hell. Here goes:
what happens to a deal making system on Wall St without any real-world organization around it? All that the deal makers require are money/credit, paper instruments to trade, and a market mechanism that spins these paper instruments into the marketplace. The money-center banks/brokerage houses/mega-insurers provided the semi-infinite supply of all those requirements to the Wall St. test tube. The deal makers then go to town, selling more copies of the specific paper instruments (CDOs, CDSs) that define the initial template of the deal.
But the interesting result was that these nature of the deals did not stay the same; they were not accurately copied. Less and less due dilligence was applied to long-range implications, until the deals reached the minimal level of accountability compatible with making pots of money by flipping mortgage paper and its derivatives. And as the dilligence relaxed, the deals got more fraudulent. So what happened was natural selection in a test tube: the riskier, shorter-term templates copied themselves faster and became more numerous, while the longer-term investment strategies were gradually eliminated.
This looks like Darwinian evolution on Wall St. But the interesting result was that this deal making went one way: toward greater short-term opportunism. Actual evolution tends to go toward greater complexity, real-world corporations and deals becoming more elaborate in their structure and behavior. But "naked deals" on their own can go nowhere but toward greater opportunism. In order for the evolution of complexity to occur, deals have to be made within a real-world context; the whole system - workers, government infrastructure, community cohesion, and industry - evolves as a reproducing unit. So the notion of Master of the Universe deal-making...turns out to be an incorrect abstraction.
The bottom line for me is that, just as the DNA experiment broke the back of DNA-authoritarianism, the Meltdown of 2008 must break the back of the neoliberal banksters. In the DNA experiment, a few dollars worth of DNA, ATP, and other nutrients were expended to provide infinite replication. On Wall St, $10 Trillion dollars have been flushed in a failed experiment that will cripple America for decades.
Whether its biology or economics, experiments show that too much authoritarianism is bad news. Where the line for "too much" is placed is a matter of experimentation. In fact, a paper published in February examines cellular signalling and control mechanisms to examine the degree to which they are distributed/democratic or top-down/autocratic.
Consider two concepts of transcriptional regulation. In a "molecular autocracy," master genes respond to environmental or developmental stimuli by regulating thousands of genes, either directly or through other transcription factors. In a "molecular democracy," all genes exert a regulatory influence on all other genes, and phenotypic change (altered cell behavior) is brought about through the concerted action of thousands of genes. These scenarios are extreme and cells operate under a condition that is somewhere intermediate. But the choice of concept affects how regulation is studied...
In autocratic regulatory networks, individual master regulator genes are stimulated by external signals and control many other genes. As shown by the energy landscape, the transcriptional states may have no preferences. In democratic networks, all genes act as mutual regulators. A few specific gene expression patterns become stable, shown as basins of attraction in the landscape. Once a cell reaches one of these states, changing the expression of one gene is unlikely to switch the cell type. Intermediate networks have mutual regulation, but certain genes are major controllers.
- "Attractors and Democratic Dynamics", Science Magazine, Systems Biology Perspecitves, February, 20, 2009.
Biologists are more than willing to experiment, because they are modest. Classical economists need to become more modest in the aftermath of the 2008 market debacle that "no one could possibly have forseen". You listening, Larry Summers?
EXTRA MATERIAL
"Metabolism-first" origins of life
Because I have this extra prequel diary, I can take the time to give you an idea of the reach of non-DNA-centric theories of evolution. In Diary #2, I discussed the RNA World hypothesis, which explained how RNA came before DNA. (In fact, another way to refer to RNA World is "RNA first", as opposed to "DNA first". But, RNA is still an information-carrying molecule. Thus, there is still a strong flavor of genetic "command and control" to the earliest stages of evolution.
There is another school, called "metabolism first", which argues that the very nature of chemical energetics in the, by definition sterile, prehistoric ocean/atmosphere caused metabolism to emerge without any direction by xNA.
This metabolism-first model is not an alternative to life based on RNA...But it does propose that geology at hydrothermal vents provided the structure in which life emerged
- R. Robinson, "Jump-Starting a Cellular World: Investigating the Origin of Life, from Soup to Networks", PLoS Biol. 2005 November; 3(11): e396.
As the quote points out, "metabolism first" is not claiming the RNA World hypothesis is wrong; it is explaining where the conditions to create RNA World came from. You are watching real scientific theorizing in action.
UPDATE: I found a URL for the Russell/Martin paper cited in the Robinson quote above. It lays out the competing theories and explains how deep ocean thermal vents solves problems with both of them.
Metabolism-first argues that the famous "citric acid cycle" (which everyone used to learn in high school) originally emerged as a metabolic (i.e., building up) process - sort of a chemical version of fusion energy. That is, there was all these free protons and all this carbon dioxide lying about. They theorize that an "autocatalytic cycle' formed which allowed the fusing (metabolism) of carbon dioxide and protons, thereby taking the overall system to a lower state of energy.
Later, when oxygen "poisoned" the primitive atmosphere that nurtured the earliest anoxic lifeforms (whose descendants today include botulism and gangrene), xNA-based evolution was able to re-purpose the citric acid cycle as the "catabolic" cycle from high school biology. That is, the cycle became used to burn the toxic oxygen for fuel.
This story is truly for geeks. These guys can get published, but it is definitely an academic debate. Still, I love how they can get evolution out of nothing more than physical chemistry and autocatalytic cycles.