Integrative Biology, an Organismic Biologist's Point of View

Abstract

Under conditions of social stability such as existed in an earlier and simpler era when there was little change from one generation to the next, it is reasonable to assume that there was a positive correlation between age and wisdom. Today the validity of that assumption seems tenuous, to say the least. Consider my situation. I am 85 years old. Clearly, I am an old scientist, and I am not sure that I have any scientific wisdom to communicate. My uncertainty is in part related to the dynamics of the scientific enterprise. Because of the success of the natural sciences and the technology derivative from them, for the past four or five centuries the human species has lived in a state of accelerating technological and cultural change. The rate of change has been particularly high for us scientists. Indeed, we live in a state of continuous intellectual revolution—and that is not an easy situation to which to adjust. As one of the elder members of the community of integrative biologists, I am overwhelmingly aware that during this continuing intellectual revolution, seniority is more likely to be correlated with obsolescence than with wisdom.

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