Biological Order by André Lwoff

Biological Order

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The organism, if it wants to work, has to burn something, just
as the steam engine does. It might burn sugar, for example. But
it is clear that what is important in the molecule of sugar is not the
structural negentropy of its atoms, the probability that these atoms
are arranged in a certain order. What is important is the energy of
the chemical bonds. The organism takes in food and burns it. It
separates and binds atoms and molecules. Work, with a correlative
degradation of energy, is produced at the expense of the energy of
the chemical bonds. The organism is unable to make use of energy
in abstracto; it has to perform oxidoreductions. The energy of light
allows the plant to separate hydrogen ions from the molecule of
water. When light meets atoms, work is produced and energy is
degraded. But, according to some physicists I have consulted, it does
not seem sound to state that the plant that uses light as its source
of energy feeds on the negative entropy of light.The same seems to be true for the energy of the chemical bond.
Unless work is produced, one cannot speak of free energy and of
its entropic component. When, as a result of a chemical reaction,
the energy of a chemical bond of food is utilized, heat is pro-
duced and a part of the energy degraded. In the original chemical
bond, one part is available for work, and the other is potential
entropy. But energy of high grade, such as the energy of light or
of a chemical bond, cannot be subdivided into positive and negative
entropy.Negentropy is a grade of energy. Orderliness is a probability.
The organism does not handle concepts of grade or logarithms of
probabilities. The organism handles atoms or molecules and the
energy of light or of chemical bonds. Nevertheless, some of the
physicists I have consulted decided that Schrödinger's formula was
perfectly acceptable, whereas others claimed that it did not make
sense at all. A general agreement was reached only on one point.
If fed with pellets of negative entropy, as positive as negative entropy
might be, even a physicist would succumb.

REFERENCES

Brillouin L. ( 1956). Science and Information Theory. Academic Press, New
York.

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Publication Information: Book Title: Biological Order. Contributors: André Lwoff - author. Publisher: M.I.T Press. Place of Publication: Cambridge, MA. Publication Year: 1962. Page Number: 97.

Title Page

PREFACE

CONTENTS

I. Introduction To Biology

REFERENCES

Ii. the Problems

Iii. the Hereditary Order: Genetic Information

REFERENCES

Iv. the Functional Order

REFERENCES

V. Viral Functions: Order and Disorder

REFERENCES

Vi. Biological Order And Entropy

REFERENCES

Vii. Conclusion

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