Crystals, Fabrics, and Fields (3)

In Haraway's review of the work of Joseph Needham:

"The use of the fiber and tissue metaphor amply expresses Needham's mature conception of the resolution of the field-particle dichotomy in biological field theory ... Fields invited the introduction of topographical models and reasoning. For example, Needham described, a kind of qualitative mathematical model of an amphibian neurula ... Needham believed that fields were distinguished from simple geographic regions of the embryo by three criteria: any given point within the field force had to possess a given quality, a given direction, and a given intensity. Fields were judged in terms of instability and successive equilibrium positions." [124-5]

Haraway's observations here matter because they make us reconsider what portion of our thinking is metaphorical and what is nonmetaphorical or other-than-metaphorical in some way. It makes perfect sense to reason topographically with continuously varying quantities of different values present in certain areas of the cell once you have decided to model parts of the cell as fields. But would such reasoning arise in the absence of a comparable metaphor?

Further:

"Explanation implies a picture, and analogy is a vehicle for connecting the internal subjective perception of the structure of a phenomenon with the public function of theory building." [106]

In Haraway's review of the work of Paul Weiss:

"After observing the intact lamella, Weiss and Ferris took electron microscopic pictures of reconstruction of the membrane after wounding. The sequence of events was easily determined: Epidermal cells first migrated over and covered the wound. Fairly uniform fibers of small size (less than 200 Å) spread in the space between the underside of the epidermis and the subjacent fibroblasts. These small fibers were oriented at random. Then, proceeding from the epidermal face downward, a "wave of organization" spread over the fiber mass, straightening and orienting its elements. The fibers became packed in the characteristic layered structure and enlarged until they were about 500 Å in diameter ... Weiss was profoundly impressed with orthogonal tissue organization and its genesis. He frequently drew from the work in lectures and general speculative articles ... The "weaving of threads into fabrics, such as we find in living tissue" seemed to necessitate the judgment that "some sort of 'macro-crystallinity' [was] a basic property of living systems"." [170]

Can the liquid crystal bridge atomistic physics and the orders of biological organization? The idea of a 'wave or organization' spread over some part of the cell is striking or even eerie. And yet researchers observe this sort of thing all the time. But why?

Haraway's conclusion to Crystals, Fabrics, and Fields joins the organicism of Harrison, Needham and Weiss in both image and world view:

"For Harrison the limb field is like a liquid crystal and unlike a jigsaw puzzle. for Needham the embryo is like history interpreted from a Marxist viewpoint and unlike an automobile with gear sifts. For Weiss butterfly behavior is like a random search and self-correcting device and unlike a deterministic stimulus-response machine. Such a catalog could be continued indefinitely, but the basic point is that organicists, even granting their internal differences, share central perceptions on the level of images and language." [205]

Crystals, Fabics, and Fields (2)

Haraway's dissertation was first published in 1976 by Yale; the reprint now available from North Atlantic Books dates from 2004. Haraway divides the work into six chapters, the middle three of which detail selections of the work of Ross Harrison, Joseph Needham and Paul Weiss. All three biologists are now identified as organicists and part of Haraway's work in the book is to illustrate the largely visual metaphors that each researcher used to transcend the mechanist-vitalist divide.

The answer in Harrison's case would appear to rest largely on the notion of a biological field active in the cell during growth and development. Haraway found the image of the field important enough for the book's title and first glosses the metaphor in her discussion of Harrison:

"Area boundaries overlap, and tissue of an intermediate region is organized into one organ or another as a function of the center whose influence predominates. Such systems came to called fields, but it is not a word used by Harrison in that context until the late 1930s. As Waddington cautioned later, the term field should convey more than a geographical meaning; he suggested a term such as area or district when one does not intend to refer to the complex of processes involved in organ formation ... Harrison's discussion of structures and processes involved in axis determination of the limb and ear is an analysis of the nature of a field and constitutes one of the first and most basic of such studies. Harrison did not use the word field very often and especially not as a deliberate theoretical concept as Weiss would have done; but nonetheless, it was his fundamental work that first gave concrete content to the organicist notion." [80]

As to Harrison's understanding of how fields might operate, the answer would appear to involve an appeal to liquid crystals:

"Some kind of paracrystalline organization, specific for a type of cytoplasm, would underlie form relations and form changes -- morphology and morphogenesis. Progressive orientation of protoplasmic elements (restriction of degrees of freedom) could account for polarity and symmetry, without any need to postulate the cell as a homogeneous system. Crystal organization in organisms was itself an example of an intermediate level of organization, joining processes of organic and inorganic nature. And perhaps most significantly, Harrison's use of crystal analogies allowed him to bypass assumptions of the mosaic-mechanistic theories of development about part-whole relations and to account for the existence of equipotential systems without turning to either entelechies or classical machines." [93]

Crystals and liquid crystals appear and reappear throughout the book. Their mention here in reference to Harrison's understanding of the operation of development fields stands out as the identification of an intermediate level of organization between the atomism of molecular biology and the whole organism of an earlier vitalism or the later organicism.

What of the edges of things?

Harrison apparently wasn't much of an attention-seeker when it came to his own work, but the following would seem to have been downright prophetic of the coming work in epigenetics:

"Birefringent material was seen in Harrison's material, especially at cell membranes. Harrison noted that their work was preliminary and should be followed up systematically. "Especially should the cell boundaries be examined thoroughly, for it is there, perhaps more than anywhere else in the cell, that we may expect to find the seat of directive forces" ... A glance at current journals in cell and developmental biology reveals the appropriateness of the admonition to study cell membrane systems in relation to form problems." [82]

Material regarding Needham and Weiss to follow in later posts.