"Reflecting on the implications of the revolution under way in the molecular biology of the 1950s and early 1960s, Canguilhem identified a shift in the epistemology of biology. The definition of life as organization, Canguilhem claimed in 1966, lost ground to a new conception: life as information. Today, this conception has not been totally discredited, to be sure, but its limits have nonetheless become apparent. The accumulation of genomic information has not led to immediate biological insight. The very epistemic status of genomic information is currently shifting from an end to a means of research: in post-genomic biology genome sequences are used as giant reference tools. Research, moreover, increasingly pays attention to complex interactions across multiple scales. The past decade, finally, has witnessed an intensification of the experimental bent of biological inquiry.
Reflecting on the implications of the conceptualization of life as information, Canguilhem was referring to a series of early successes in the endeavor of molecular biology. He was not referring to a particular science when he claimed that mankind makes mistakes when it chooses the wrong spot for receiving the kind of knowledge it is after. Clearly, that knowledge is only partially to be found by way of the molecularization of life. Today, biologists are experimenting with a broad range of spots so as to turn genomic information into biological knowledge. Contemporary inflections of the biologization of life are nothing but an attempt to move things around, once again, in a different manner, so as to flourish and survive. History has moved on, and history will continue to move on – and so should our inquiries. Nonetheless, Canguilhem’s project remains relevant if it is taken as what it was meant to be: a reviving invitation to investigate the unexpected emergence of objects and the unpredictable reconfiguration of forms as they assemble into an ever-shifting understanding of life."

- Rabinow P., Caduff C. "Life – After Canguilhem"