Philosophers of science have long been uneasy with biology, preferring instead to focus on physics.
Topic
Whether biology consists of universal laws (like physics) or whether historical contingency is integral to it.
Framework
Present Debate. The author lays out the longstanding preference for physics, traces how some biologists tried to imitate physics, and presents a recent challenge — that biology may need to make room for historical contingency.
Main Point
Philosophers of science have favored physics because it deals in universal laws and avoids the merely particular; some biologists have tried to make biology look like physics, but recent biologists question whether biology is reducible to universal laws — historical contingency may be integral.
P1: Why philosophers prefer physics
Philosophers of science distrust uncertainty and want repeatable, universal phenomena, not historically contingent ones. They're fascinated by elephants and mice falling at the same rate (universal law) but uninterested in how elephants and mice came to be different sizes (historical particulars).
P2: Some biologists tried to be like physicists
Some evolutionary biologists also tried to construct biology as a set of universal laws — invoking a universal "struggle for existence" or claiming DNA evolves at a constant rate. Recently, however, some biologists have questioned this and raised the possibility that historical contingency is integral to biology.
P3: A test contrast — "all planets move in ellipses"
"All planets move in ellipses" is genuinely universal: it applies even to merely possible planets, because the shape of orbits follows necessarily from the laws of gravity.