{"title":"Biology as involving laws and inconceivable without them.","authors":"Richard Creath","doi":"10.1007/s12064-023-00384-2","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>There is an old attempt to divide the sciences into sciences of laws and the historical sciences. More recently, John Beatty has drawn the distinction so that biology is a historical science and urged that there are no genuinely biological laws. This paper shows that there are indeed biological laws, specifically statistical ones, notably in evolutionary theory. Moreover, all or almost all other areas of biology involve laws as well. Even history involves laws. Finally, the paper shows that this pervasiveness of laws is compatible with the most basic commitments of those who, like Beatty, would claim that biology is only historical.</p>","PeriodicalId":54428,"journal":{"name":"Theory in Biosciences","volume":"142 1","pages":"61-66"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9925592/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Theory in Biosciences","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s12064-023-00384-2","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"BIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
There is an old attempt to divide the sciences into sciences of laws and the historical sciences. More recently, John Beatty has drawn the distinction so that biology is a historical science and urged that there are no genuinely biological laws. This paper shows that there are indeed biological laws, specifically statistical ones, notably in evolutionary theory. Moreover, all or almost all other areas of biology involve laws as well. Even history involves laws. Finally, the paper shows that this pervasiveness of laws is compatible with the most basic commitments of those who, like Beatty, would claim that biology is only historical.
期刊介绍：
Theory in Biosciences focuses on new concepts in theoretical biology. It also includes analytical and modelling approaches as well as philosophical and historical issues. Central topics are:
Artificial Life;
Bioinformatics with a focus on novel methods, phenomena, and interpretations;
Bioinspired Modeling;
Complexity, Robustness, and Resilience;
Embodied Cognition;
Evolutionary Biology;
Evo-Devo;
Game Theoretic Modeling;
Genetics;
History of Biology;
Language Evolution;
Mathematical Biology;
Origin of Life;
Philosophy of Biology;
Population Biology;
Systems Biology;
Theoretical Ecology;
Theoretical Molecular Biology;
Theoretical Neuroscience & Cognition.
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