What are the the strongest arguments against there being biological laws?

Poppy May 02, 2020 at 10:28 1450 views 3 comments

I have a paper due in in a few days and I'm really struggling to get to grips with the reading surrounding this topic. It would be really helpful to know which arguments are deemed the strongest arguments against there being biological laws so I can focus on those papers and get my essay in on time! I'm pretty sure Beatty's Evolutionary Contingency Thesis is one of them, but I would really appreciate suggestions regarding other arguments. Thanks!

Comments (3)

SophistiCat May 02, 2020 at 11:51 #408370 0 likes

Reply to Poppy Perhaps this SEP article will be of some help: Reductionism in Biology

Reductionism in Biology:Epistemic reduction is the idea that the knowledge about one scientific domain (typically about higher level processes) can be reduced to another body of scientific knowledge (typically concerning a lower or more fundamental level).

TheMadFool May 10, 2020 at 23:35 #411636 0 likes

Reply to Poppy Well, we have Mendel's laws of inheritance which is a bona fide biological law. I would put my money on the existence of biological laws rather than the contrary.

Outlander May 11, 2020 at 04:52 #411736 0 likes

I'd say it's not so much that there aren't, simply they are different across the animal kingdom and can be easily circumvented or made irrelevant.

Humans and just about anything else has to eat or drink to sustain themselves. This is not true for certain single-celled organisms like tardigrades. Also, the 'immortal jellyfish' is quite the conversation starter.

Maybe tomorrow some wacky scientist will come up with a way to make us live forever or be able to offer some surgery where we only have to eat every year or so. If Goliath fought David by hand the story probably would've turned out a bit differently. Not a deviation from Darwinism simply that it is safe to assume 'survival of the fittest' is not explicitly about physical size or prowess. On that note evolution would seem to suggest these laws are dynamic anyhow.

When you say 'biological laws' do you mean say the scientific processes ie. cellular respiration or more of behavior and whatnot or everything in between?