Phylloxera and the grapevine: A sense of common purpose?

Abstract

The purpose of life is its continuation: survival is the reason things live. Here we explore this 'basic' of biology, by reference to the extraordinary life-cycle of the aphid-like pest phylloxera, and the complexity of its relationship with its host the grapevine. The effort and ingenuity that phylloxera employs to continue itself leads to a doubt that survival alone is sufficient reason. It has frequently been suggested that the reduction of life to a catalogue of facts (by science) creates this doubt, because it robs existence of its essence (which is something other than its mechanics). The part that science is said to steal is what Robert Pirsig calls Quality - the harmonious balance of things. Pirsig seems to imply that this is something inherent in things - and independent from us. A more mundane explanation is that the difference between facts and the complete reality is us - the tendency of the mind to connect freely between different kinds of information. This possibility is briefly illustrated here by a myth based on the facts of phylloxera. © The Author [2005]. Published by Oxford University Press [on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology]. All rights reserved.