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The philosophy of biology is a subfield of philosophy of science, which deals with epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical issues in the biological and biomedical sciences. Although philosophers of science and philosophers generally have long been interested in biology (e.g., Aristotle, Descartes, and even Kant), philosophy of biology only emerged as an independent field of philosophy in the 1960s and 1970s. Philosophers of science then began paying increasing attention to biology, from the rise of Neodarwinism in the 1930s and 1940s to the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953 to more recent advances in genetic engineering. Other key ideas include the reduction of all life processes to biochemical reactions, and the incorporation of psychology into a broader neuroscience.

Overview
Philosophers of biology examine the practices, theories, and concepts of biologists with a view toward better understanding biology as a scientific discipline (or group of scientific fields). Scientific ideas are philosophically analyzed and their consequences are explored. Philosophers of biology have also explored how our understanding of biology relates to epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, and metaphysics and whether progress in biology should compel modern societies to rethink traditional values concerning all aspects of human life. It is sometimes difficult to separate the philosophy of biology from theoretical biology.


 * "What is a biological species?"
 * "What is natural selection, and how does it operate in nature?"
 * "How should we distinguish disease states from non-disease states?"


 * "What is life?"
 * "What makes humans uniquely human?"
 * "What is the basis of moral thinking?"
 * "How is rationality possible, given our biological origins?"
 * "Is evolution compatible with Christianity or other religious systems?"

Increasingly, ideas drawn from philosophical ontology and logic are being used by biologists in the domain of bioinformatics. Ontologies such as the Gene Ontology are being used to annotate the results of biological experiments in a variety of model organisms in order to create logically tractable bodies of data available for reasoning and search. The Gene Ontology itself is a species-neutral graph-theoretical representation of biological types joined together by formally defined relations.

Philosophy of biology today has become a visible, well-organized discipline - with its own journals, conferences, and professional organizations. The largest of the latter is the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB).

Biological Laws and Autonomy of Biology
A prominent question in the philosophy of biology is whether or not there can be distinct biological laws in the way there are distinct physical laws.

Laws in nature are generally presumed to meet two conditions. One, that they be spatiotemporally unrestricted, and two, that they not describe how things happen to be, but rather how they have to be. The latter condition implies a form of necessity in laws. This is crucial in distinguishing between a "natural law" and an "accidental regularity". Laws could be strict, or allow for exceptions. Scientific reductionism is the view that higher-level biological processes reduce to physical and chemical processes. For example, the biological process of respiration is explained as a biochemical process involving oxygen and carbon dioxide. Some philosophers of biology have attempted to answer the question of whether all biological processes reduce to physical or chemical ones. On the reductionist view, there would be no distinctly biological laws. However, some consider this 'nothing-but' characterization to be a misrepresentation of reductionism.

Holism is the view that emphasizes higher-level processes, phenomena at a larger level that occur due to the pattern of interactions between the elements of a system over time. For example, to explain why one species of finch survives a drought while others die out, the holistic method looks at the entire ecosystem. Reducing an ecosystem to its parts in this case would be less effective at explaining overall behavior (in this case, the decrease in biodiversity). As individual organisms must be understood in the context of their ecosystems, holists argue, so must lower-level biological processes be understood in the broader context of the living organism in which they take part. Proponents of this view cite our growing understanding of the multidirectional and multilayered nature of gene modulation (including epigenetic changes) as an area where a reductionist view is inadequate for full explanatory power. (See also Holism in science.)

All processes in organisms obey physical laws, but some argue that the difference between inanimate and biological processes is that the organisation of biological properties is subject to control by coded information. This has led some biologists and philosophers (for example, Ernst Mayr and David Hull) to return to the strictly philosophical reflections of Charles Darwin to resolve some of the problems which confronted them when they tried to employ a philosophy of science derived from classical physics. The positivist approach used in physics emphasised a strict determinism (as opposed to high probability) and led to the discovery of universally applicable laws, testable in the course of experiment. It was difficult for biology, beyond a basic microbiological level, to use this approach. Standard philosophy of science seemed to leave out a lot of what characterised living organisms - namely, a historical component in the form of an inherited genotype.

Philosophers of biology have also examined the notion of “teleology.” Some have argued that scientists have had no need for a notion of cosmic teleology that can explain and predict evolution, since one was provided by Darwin. But teleological explanations relating to purpose or function have remained useful in biology, for example, in explaining the structural configuration of macromolecules and the study of co-operation in social systems. By clarifying and restricting the use of the term “teleology” to describe and explain systems controlled strictly by genetic programmes or other physical systems, teleological questions can be framed and investigated while remaining committed to the physical nature of all underlying organic processes. While some philosophers claim that the ideas of Charles Darwin ended the last remainders of teleology in biology, the matter continues to be debated. Debates in these areas of philosophy of biology turn on how one views reductionism more generally.

On Models in Biology
Biological models raise several interesting philosophical questions about the nature of models and the science of modeling. Models are often simplified and idealized, and sometimes even unrealistic. How is it possible for such models to explain anything about the real world? What is the connection between the model and the real world?

Idealization in models is a virtue that enables easier calculation and better prediction, which allows us to systematically and precisely explore certain concepts. However, are models just predictive tools, or are they tools for conceptual exploration? These two teleological notions of models are often interlinked. Good predictive models can be used for conceptual exploration, and good conceptual exploration tools can be used for making predictions. For example, the debate around what kinds of selection, operating at what levels, may be effective in producing evolutionary change has largely played out through the construction of mathematical genetic models. Another example is the Price equation which isn't a physical or biological law, rather it is a purely mathematical relationship between various statistical descriptors of population dynamics. The Price equation can describe any system that changes over time, but is most often applied in evolutionary biology where it is used to describe how a trait or allele changes in frequency over time.

Models could also be methods of isolating causes. Models are explanatory because their important assumptions are true (even if their idealizations are not). These idealizations allow us to isolate those important factors and see how they work all other things being equal. If predictions from such models seem to fit empirical observation, what does this apparent fit of the theoretical with the natural world reveal? Sometimes, it can reveal causal reasons for our observations. As an example, to explain Kleiber's observation (now Kleiber's Law) that for the vast majority of organisms the metabolic rate scales to the ¾ power of the animal's mass, a theoretical model was derived by West, Enquist, and Brown using very few postulates about the efficiency in biological networks. The predictions of the theoretical model lined up almost perfectly with our observations, which leads researchers to believe the causes isolated as postulates might be necessary and sufficient in explaining this phenomenon.

Models can also be caricatures of real systems. Models simultaneously isolate and distort in away that helps emphasize the role and significance of certain factors in producing out comes of interest. There is often an emphasis on the psychology of explanation in such models. There is more to models than illustration, is there more to caricatures? While it was, and remains, a contentious claim at the time, Memes and memetics were born out of the gene-meme analogy used by Dawkins. According to him, memes in cultural evolution are to be viewed analogous to genes in biological evolution. There remains significant controversy about many aspects of memes, including whether they exist, or more milder opposition questioning the extent of the impact of memes in cultural evolution. The most prominent critique of memetics however remains in the apparent lack of any inferences we can draw from this analogy.

On Units of Selection
The unit of selection debate in evolutionary biology is one of the oldest in evolutionary theory. While evolutionary biology usually focuses on one interpretation of the question, many other debates stem from the notion of unit of selection.

The interactor question: The most well known form of this debate is the revolves around the notion of the "interactor". Simply put, what units are being selected for in the process of natural selection? Questions about interactors focus on the description of the selection process itself, that is, on the interaction between an entity, that entity’s traits and environment, and on how this interaction produces evolution; they do not focus on the outcome of this process. The interaction between some interactor at a certain level and its environment is assumed to be mediated by “traits” that affect the interactor’s expected survival and reproductive success. Here, the interactor is possibly at any level of biological organization. However, is it a group, a kin-group, an organism, a gamete, a chromosome, or a gene?

The replicator question: The discussions about replicators focus their concerns at which organic entities actually meet the definition of replicator. Different answers to this question arise as there is no consensus on what is a replicator, and the choice of definition is critical in the response to this question. The synthesis of classical genetics and molecular biology has modified this question to how large or small a fragment of genome ought to count as a replicating unit - something that is copied, and which can be treated separately in evolutionary theory.

The beneficiary question: Who benefits from a process of evolution by selection? There are two predominant interpretations of this question: Who benefits ultimately in the long term, from the evolution by selection process? And who gets the benefit of possessing adaptations as a result of a selection process? Once again, different ways of characterizing long-term survivors and beneficiaries of evolution by selection process lead to different answers. One view, championed by Dawkins, is that lineages are characterized at the genic level - the surviving alleles in a population are the only relevant long-term beneficiaries. By definition, a beneficiary here must function as the initiator of a causal pathway, rather than simply accruing credit in the long term. The latter interpretation of the question involves notions of adaptation. The evolution by selection process can be said to "benefit" a particular level of entity under selection via producing adaptations at that level. Here, the level of entity actively selected (interactor) is the beneficiary from evolution by selection at that level through acquiring adaptations.

The owner of adaptations question: At what level do adaptations occur? Or, “When a population evolves by natural selection, what, if anything, is the entity that does the adapting?. [Some, if not most, of this confusion is a result of a very important but neglected duality in the meaning of “adaptation”. The two meanings of adaptation, the selection-product and engineering definitions respectively, are distinct, and in some cases, incompatible. Sometimes “adaptation” is taken to signify any trait at all that is a direct result of a selection process at that level. In this view, any trait that arises directly from a selection process is claimed to be, by definition, an adaptation. Sometimes, on the other hand, the term “adaptation” is reserved for traits that are “good for” their owners, that is, those that provide a “better fit” with the environment, and that intuitively satisfy some notion of “good engineering.”

Ethical Implications of Biology
Sharon Street claims that contemporary evolutionary biological theory creates what she calls a “Darwinian Dilemma” for realists. She argues that this is because it is unlikely that our evaluative judgements about morality are tracking anything true about the world. Rather, she says, it is likely that moral judgements and intuitions that promote our reproductive fitness[link] were selected for, and there is no reason to think “true” moral intuitions would be selected for as well. She notes that a moral intuition most people share, that someone being a close family member is a prima facie good reason to help them, happens to an intuition likely to increase reproductive fitness, while a moral intuition almost no one has, that someone being a close family member is a reason not to help them, is likely to decrease reproductive fitness.

David Copp responded to Street by arguing that realists can avoid this so-called dilemma by accepting what he calls a “quasi-tracking” position. Copp explains that what he means by quasi tracking is that it is likely that moral positions in a given society would have evolved to be at least somewhat close to the truth. He justifies this by appealing to the claim that the purpose of morality is to allow a society to meet certain basic needs, such as social stability, and a society with a successful moral codes would be better at doing this.

Other perspectives
While the overwhelming majority of English-speaking scholars operating under the banner of "philosophy of biology" work within the Anglo-American tradition of analytical philosophy, there is a stream of philosophic work in continental philosophy which seeks to deal with issues deriving from biological science. The communication difficulties involved between these two traditions are well known, not helped by differences in language. Gerhard Vollmer is often thought of as a bridge but, despite his education and residence in Germany, he largely works in the Anglo-American tradition, particularly pragmatism, and is famous for his development of Konrad Lorenz's and Willard Van Orman Quine's idea of evolutionary epistemology. On the other hand, one scholar who has attempted to give a more continental account of the philosophy of biology is Hans Jonas. His "The Phenomenon of Life" (New York, 1966) sets out boldly to offer an "existential interpretation of biological facts", starting with the organism's response to stimulus and ending with man confronting the Universe, and drawing upon a detailed reading of phenomenology. This is unlikely to have much influence on mainstream philosophy of biology, but indicates, as does Vollmer's work, the current powerful influence of biological thought on philosophy. Another account is given by the late Virginia Tech philosopher Marjorie Grene.

Another perspective on the philosophy of biology is how developments in modern biological research and biotechnologies have influenced traditional philosophical ideas about the distinction between biology and technology, as well as implications for ethics, society, and culture. An example is the work of philosopher Eugene Thacker in his book Biomedia. Building on current research in fields such as bioinformatics and biocomputing, as well as on work in the history of science (particularly the work of Georges Canguilhem, Lily E. Kay, and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger), Thacker defines biomedia in the following way: "Biomedia entail the informatic recontextualization of biological components and processes, for ends that may be medical or non-medical...biomedia continuously make the dual demand that information materialize itself as gene or protein compounds. This point cannot be overstated: biomedia depend upon an understanding of biological as informational but not immaterial."

Some approaches to the philosophy of biology incorporate perspectives from science studies and/or science and technology studies, anthropology, sociology of science, and political economy. This includes work by scholars such as Melinda Cooper, Luciana Parisi, Paul Rabinow, Kaushik Sundar Rajan, Nikolas Rose, and Catherine Waldby.

Philosophy of biology was historically associated very closely with theoretical evolutionary biology, however more recently there have been more diverse movements within philosophy of biology including movements to examine for instance molecular biology.

Scientific discovery process
Research in biology continues to be less guided by theory than it is in other sciences. This is especially the case where the availability of high throughput screening techniques for the different "-omics" fields such as genomics, whose complexity makes them predominantly data-driven. Such data-intensive scientific discovery is by some considered to be the fourth paradigm, after empiricism, theory and computer simulation. Others reject the idea that data driven research is about to replace theory. As Krakauer et al. put it: "machine learning is a powerful means of preprocessing data in preparation for mechanistic theory building, but should not be considered the final goal of a scientific inquiry." In regard to cancer biology, Raspe et al. state: "A better understanding of tumor biology is fundamental for extracting the relevant information from any high throughput data." The journal Science chose cancer immunotherapy as the breakthrough of 2013. According to their explanation a lesson to be learned from the successes of cancer immunotherapy is that they emerged from decoding of basic biology.

Theory in biology is to some extent less strictly formalized than in physics. Besides 1) classic mathematical-analytical theory, as in physics, there is 2) statistics-based, 3) computer simulation and 4) conceptual/verbal analysis. Dougherty and Bittner argue that for biology to progress as a science, it has to move to more rigorous mathematical modeling, or otherwise risk to be "empty talk".

In tumor biology research, the characterization of cellular signaling processes has largely focused on identifying the function of individual genes and proteins. Janes showed however the context-dependent nature of signaling driving cell decisions demonstrating the need for a more system based approach. The lack of attention for context dependency in preclinical research is also illustrated by the observation that preclinical testing rarely includes predictive biomarkers that, when advanced to clinical trials, will help to distinguish those patients who are likely to benefit from a drug.