Theory of Evolution and Historical Explanation in Biology

Subject Areas : Philosophy

کیوان الستی ¹ (ندارد)

Received: 2010-09-30 Accepted : 2011-03-16 Published : 2009-09-23

Keywords: Evolution, Biology, historical explanation, Darwin,

Abstract :

Many biologists believe that evolution is grant theory in modernbiology. Believing on the centrality of evolutionary theory to the rest ofbiology is a special case of a more general idea: nothing in biology canbe understood completely without attending to its history. According tothis idea, we should regard biology as a historical science rather than anomothetic one. But it may be supposed that as physics have beenchanged from a historical to nomothetic science, biology should also bechanged to a more “accurate” science; that is, a nomothetic science. Inthis essay, I try to reject this idea by presenting some historicalevidences to show that it is not because of evolutionary theory thatbiology is historical.