Abstract

This paper explores the functional role of noise in synthetic biology and its relation to the concept of randomness. Ongoing developments in the field of synthetic biology are pursuing the re-organisation and control of biological components to make functional devices. This paper addresses the distinction between noise and randomness in reference to the functional relationships that each may play in the evolution of living and/or synthetic systems. The differentiation between noise and randomness in its constructive role, that is, between noise as a perturbation in routine behaviours and noise as a source of variability that cells may exploit, indicates the need for a clarification and rectification of the conflicting uses of the notion of noise in the studies of the so-called noise biology.