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1 - Why Should Biologists Care about the Philosophy of Science?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 September 2020

By
Tobias Uller  and
Kostas Kampourakis
Edited by
Kostas Kampourakis  and
Tobias Uller
Kostas Kampourakis
Affiliation:
Université de Genève
Tobias Uller
Affiliation:
Lunds Universitet, Sweden
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Summary

To many biologists, science and philosophy may appear an odd couple without much in common. Perhaps the word “philosophy” will even bring to mind endless arguments and speculation about whether the chicken or the egg came first, without ever getting anywhere. After all, are philosophers not still arguing over the same things as Aristotle and his fellow Greeks? Well, yes. But biologists too are concerned with the questions that occupied Aristotle: what living beings are and where they come from; how they develop, function, and interact with one another; and why there are so many forms and how those forms should be classified. There has been tremendous progress in biology, of course. But it does not appear that biologists will ever run out of questions. This is because good science does not only reveal new things about the world; it also reveals that there are things we did not even know we could know. So we want to know more.

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Philosophy of Science for Biologists , pp. 1 - 20
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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