Biological mistakes: what they are and what they mean for the experimental biologist

Abstract

Organisms and other biological entities are mistake-prone: they get things wrong. The entities of pure physics, such as atoms and inorganic molecules, do not make mistakes: they do what they do according to physical law, with no room for error except on the part of the physicist or their theory. We set out a novel framework for understanding biology and its demarcation from physics – that of mistake-making. We distinguish biological mistakes from mere failures. We then propose a rigorous definition of mistakes that, although invoking the concept of function, is compatible with various views about what functions are. The definition of mistake-making is agential, since mistakes do not just happen ¬– at least in the sense analysed here – but are made. This requires, then, a notion of biological agency which we set out as a definition of the Minimal Biological Agent. The paper then considers a series of objections to the theory presented here, along with our replies. Two key features of our theory of mistakes are, first, that it is a supplement to, not a replacement for, existing general frameworks within which biology is understood and practised. Secondly, it is designed to be experimentally productive. Hence we end with a series of case studies where mistake theory can be shown to be useful in the potential generation of research questions and novel hypotheses of interest to the working biologist.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

  • Only published works are available at libraries.

Similar books and articles

Two mistakes regarding the principal principle.Christopher J. G. Meacham - 2010 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 61 (2):407-431.
Agency and Mistakes.Santiago Amaya - 2022 - In Luca Ferrero (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Agency. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 149-150.
Confessions of an Evolutionary Biologist.Robert E. Page - 2007 - Biological Theory 2 (2):207-208.
Ryle, the Double Counting Problem, and the Logical Form of Category Mistakes.Jonah Goldwater - 2018 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 56 (2):337-359.

Analytics

Added to PP
2023-02-01

Downloads
41 (#339,996)

6 months
10 (#135,809)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

David S. Oderberg
University of Reading
Christopher J. Austin
Durham University

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Functional analysis.Robert E. Cummins - 1975 - Journal of Philosophy 72 (November):741-64.
In defense of proper functions.Ruth Millikan - 1989 - Philosophy of Science 56 (June):288-302.

View all 10 references / Add more references