The other side of molecular biology

The question is raised whether in addition to the well-known causal processes of molecular mechanics there are other effects of atomic physics which might appear significantly in biology. We find one, namely the process of molecular synthesis that involves ambiguities due to the competition of isomers. The ambiguities, mathematically called bifurcations, represent binary decisions buried in noise. The assumption is made that collectively there are enough causally undefined decisions to speak of the creativity of the organism as a basic phenomenon in its own right. Creativity, in the past a purely literary term, becomes then a scientific one for which exact definitions are required. We point out that in such a case theory can only specify necessary conditions of phenomena not sufficient ones, as distinct from physics. A very brief survey is made of the major features of a biological theory based on such assumptions.