Reproductive Physiology

This definition continues for four pages, at the end of which one still does not know what the Coordinative Conditions are, but one begins to grasp their enormity. As a biologist I am appalled, not only at the concept of a series of alegbraic conditions that will be capable of expressing biological coordination from the atomic to the societal levels, but also at the amount of factual information still needed before such a project could even be considered. This does not affect Mr. Whyte's argument because he claims that Einstein's statement that "once one has sufficiently strong formal hypotheses, one requires little knowledge of the facts to set up a theory," is equally true in biology. This is of course a reasonable statement, and a particularly happy one for philosophers. Unfortunately, in science, a theory that does not fit the facts can often do more harm than good. It is not enough to have a theory; what one would like is a theory with some probability of being correct. Biology at this time is, admittedly, a field that is in need of unifying hypotheses and explanations that will draw together vast numbers of inchoate facts. It is interesting to note that a fair number of physicists have decided they are the people to do it, and have jumped into the fray. We are, of course, properly grateful and flattered at the lure of our subject. But one has the suspicion that the real reason for their choosing this particular time is not the call of biology, but simply that physics today is undergoing a series of revolutions in which facts are proving to be far more complex and less aesthetically pleasing than theory. One would like to warn these newcomers that biology too will have its disappointments and may prove refractory to coercion. Perhaps those people whose real interest lies in forcing all things into a single model or equation should stay with philosophy where no facts raise their ugly heads, and where one system is as good as another if it is internally consistent.