The “new mechanical philosophy” takes its inspiration from biology and simultaneously traces its origin to René Descartes. It pays little attention to Descartes’ mechanistic biology, however, which, admittedly, even most historians of philosophy and science mistakenly treat as a straightforward extension of Descartes’ attempt to explain natural phenomena in terms of shapes and movement of parts...

Biologists in search of answers to real-world issues such as the ecological consequences of global warming, the design of species' conservation plans, understanding landscape dynamics and understanding gene expression make decisions constantly that are based on a 'philosophical' stance as to how to create and test explanations of an observed phenomenon. For better or for worse, some kind of phi...

Biologists in search of answers to real-world issues such as the ecological consequences of global warming, the design of species’ conservation plans, understanding landscape dynamics and understanding gene expression make decisions constantly that are based on a ‘philosophical’ stance as to how to create and test explanations of an observed phenomenon. For better or for worse, some kind of phi...