The Pursuit of Perfection: Aspects of Biochemical Evolution

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The term Biochemical Evolution is used to describe the evolution of the biochemical processes and components of living organisms, such as the structure and function of biologically important molecules, metabolic pathways, subcellular structures, and cells. Although a relatively new subject, this field of research has already received great interest from both academia and industry because the principles and theory behind biochemical evolution have enormous potential in the creation and development of new biologically active compounds, drugs, and treatments for disease. However, almost every book that discusses evolution has ignored the role that biochemical evolution plays, and so in his new book, Athel Cornish-Bowden attempts to fill the knowledge gap for students, professional scientists and all interested individuals. In The Pursuit of Perfection the author explains how the biochemical processes that occur in living cells, long thought to be evidence of intelligent design rather than evolution, can now be understood as the result of natural selection.
For example, the initial impression that metabolic pathways consist of an almost haphazard collection of reactions that happen to do the job turns out to be quite false. When detailed studies are made to see how the actual organization of a process compares with other ways of achieving the same result, the one found in living organisms is found to be the best possible, or at least very close to it. The style, content and organisation of the book are intended to make the book accessible, interesting, and fun to read for both scientists, students, and scientifically-minded individuals.

The Pursuit of Perfection: Aspects of Biochemical Evolution Review

One imagines that in the great expanse of time from the formation of the earth until before the first fossils appeared (something like a couple of billion years) a veritable riot of biochemistry took place as proto-cellular life searched for the most efficient and economic chemistry to run its replicators. And as these replicators gathered other molecules to form amino acids and proteins, helped along by molecules serving as maidservant-like enzymes, their biochemical reactions became more and more efficient until self-sustaining cells featuring "organizational invariance" were well established.

Cornish-Bowden calls this process "the pursuit of perfection." He asks the question, are metabolic pathways and the enzymes employed in living systems optimized, or is it the case that the evolutionary mechanism hit here and there on something that worked, and stayed with it? In other words, are the ways that living cells use chemistry to run their systems Panglossian? Is the chemical world inside the cell, in general, the best of all possible ways it could be?

Cornish-Bowden, who is director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Marseilles, France, argues that such is indeed the case. (See his direct statement on page 14.) His technique, relying to some extent upon the work of Spanish biochemist Enrique Melendez-Hevia (to whom this book is dedicated) is to postulate mathematically what an optimal metabolism might be and then to compare that to how the cell actually operates. Cornish-Bowden points out that optimal metabolism in the cell is not necessarily the most efficient in the lab since the reactions within the cell are constrained by a complex environment that includes hundreds of other reactions taking place at the same time.

Part of Cornish-Bowden's purpose is to demonstrate that, although enormously complex, biochemistry is not so complex as to require design by a supernatural being. Indeed, he argues that biochemistry is the direct result of how matter and energy work, and that some calculations of how "unlikely" it is that amino acid sequences used by living systems could arise by chance, are exaggerated. I think it would have been good if Cornish-Bowden had also emphasized that chance really has nothing to do with it, since many creationist and intelligent designer types still think evolution is postulated to proceed by chance. It does not. The majority view among scientists that I have read (and Cornish-Bowden is certainly among them) is that the biochemistry of life, however complex, is a direct result of the nature of matter and energy as they react in certain environments. The exact manifestations of the evolutionary process are contingent (the word that Stephen Jay Gould preferred) on the unraveling through time and space.

Another of Cornish-Bowden's purposes here is to present his ideas to a more general readership than biochemistry usually receives. He takes care to make the text as readable and accessible to the general reader as possible. In this, however, I think he is up against some nearly insurmountable difficulties. The problem is that, however carefully the author presents complex arguments involving technical matters using specialized terminology, that author, however talented, will not reach a general readership because the reader will not have the time or the inclination to STUDY the arguments. And, alas, many of Cornish-Bowden's arguments are highly technical and require study to fully appreciate.

Furthermore it is almost impossible for a working scientist to write for a general readership within his area of expertise without being aware that other scientists in his field are looking over his shoulder. Consequently, the scientist is careful to make the many qualifications necessary and to cite the exceptions--in other words, to be rigorous. And rigor in science requires dotting i's and crossing t's in a manner that will often appear as Greek to the nonspecialist.

For myself (your typical, limited, non-specialist) I took his detailed explanations at face value. I turned the pages when the argument got too specialized, and ultimately I concerned myself with his conclusions.

Here are some interesting ideas that I gleaned along the way, ideas that make this book definitely worthwhile:

Most important perhaps is the idea that advances in understanding biochemical evolution are leading the way toward a more powerful understanding of how evolution works. For example, it is the study of DNA, augmenting the sketchy fossil record, that has fixed modern human origins in Africa between fifty and a hundred thousand years ago.

Another interesting idea that Cornish-Bowden emphasizes is that "the sort of perfect correlation [between prediction and result] that would delight a physicist should arouse suspicion in a biologist." (p. 146) In order words, biology is a bit messy and inexact in comparison to physics, and should a one-to-one correlation arise, it might be the case that the correlation is a tautology or a mathematical artifact.

I also liked his very intriguing description of cancer as a "parasitic species that lives out its entire evolutionary history from speciation to extinction during a fraction of the lifespan of its host." (p. 150)

Important too is the distinction that Cornish-Bowden insists upon between "complicated" and "complex." Noting the property (from complexity theory) of "emergence," he explains that a "system is complicated if it contains many components...," but to be <complex> "a system needs...in some sense to be more than the sum of its parts." (p. 130)

Finally, I liked the way he explained how bacteria find food, a kind of movement he calls "a biased random walk." In essence the bacteria moves onward if things are getting better, but when things are getting worse "it stops quickly and tumbles," thereby randomly changing direction. (p. 50)

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