I used to feel the same way about molecular biology when I was
in college studying physical chemistry. That opinion didn't last
much longer than a couple days after I took a biochemistry course.
Ernst Mayr has a lot to say about biology and science in his
book _The growth of biological thought_ :: Particularly the second
chapter "The place of biology in the sciences and its structure".
Biology presents an interesting case because it seeks to explain
the function of organisms that are both complex and the products of
long historical processes.
Contrary to Moorad's impression about the importance of physics
in all the sciences... I've found that I can do some pretty
interesting and informative science without worrying much about
physics or chemistry. One doesn't have to always know why something
works, just _how_ it does within certain conditions. Sometimes you
can ignore the sources of an emergent property. Heck, if you
couldn't, you'd never get anywhere in science.
Now, I readily accept the assumption that basic physical "laws" are
the source of physical phenomena. However, I do not believe that all
phenomena are necessarily explanable by "simple" physical processes.
It's not that I wouldn't like to understand biological phenomena
from the standpoint of all its underlying physics, it's just that
it's either not possible or not terribly informative in many
cases.
Aside:
Is "evolutionary theory" falsifiable? Given what we currently know
and assuming that discoveries will continue pretty much as they
have done so far (ie. that no new "revolutionary" discoveries are
unearthed), I'd guess not. Of course, if life was generated by
extranatural assembly, there's no reason to think that we'd necessarily
confuse that process with evolution. Certainly evolution _could_ have
been falsified had things been different -- but that didn't happen.
And it can be falsified today -- it's just tougher, given the patterns
of life currently known.
Regards,
Tim Ikeda
tikeda@sprintmail.hormel.com (despam address before use)