Philosophers of science have long been uneasy with biology, preferring

Philosophers of science have long been uneasy
with biology, preferring instead to focus on physics. At
the heart of this preference is a mistrust of uncertainty.
Science is supposed to be the study of what is true
(5) everywhere and for all times, and the phenomena of
science are supposed to be repeatable, arising from
universal laws, rather than historically contingent.
After all, if something pops up only on occasional
Tuesdays or Thursdays, it is not classified as science
(10) but as history. Philosophers of science have thus been
fascinated with the fact that elephants and mice would
fall at the same rate if dropped from the Tower of Pisa,
but not much interested in how elephants and mice got
to be such different sizes in the first place.

(15) Philosophers of science have not been alone in
claiming that science must consist of universal laws.
Some evolutionary biologists have also acceded to the
general intellectual disdain for the merely particular
and tried to emulate physicists, constructing their
(20) science as a set of universal laws. In formulating the
notion of a universal “struggle for existence” that is the
engine of biological history or in asserting that
virtually all DNA evolves at a constant clocklike rate,
they have attempted to find their own versions of the
(25) law of gravity. Recently, however, some biologists
have questioned whether biological history is really the
necessary unfolding of universal laws of life, and they
have raised the possibility that historical contingency is
an integral factor in biology.

(30) To illustrate the difference between biologists
favoring universal, deterministic laws of evolutionary
development and those leaving room for historical
contingency, consider two favorite statements of
philosophers (both of which appear, at first sight, to be
(35) universal assertions): “All planets move in ellipses”
and “All swans are white.” The former is truly
universal because it applies not only to those planets
that actually do exist, but also to those that could
exist—for the shape of planetary orbits is a necessary
(40) consequence of the laws governing the motion of
objects in a gravitational field.

Biological determinists would say that “All swans
are white” is universal in the same way, since, if all
swans were white, it would be because the laws of
(45) natural selection make it impossible for swans to be
otherwise: natural selection favors those
characteristics that increase the average rate of
offspring production, and so traits that maximize
flexibility and the ability to manipulate nature will
(50) eventually appear. Nondeterminist biologists would
deny this, saying that “swans” is merely the name of a
finite collection of historical objects that may happen
all to be white, but not of necessity. The history of
evolutionary theory has been the history of the struggle
(55) between these two views of swans.

1. Which one of the following best summarizes the main idea of the passage?

(A) Just as philosophers of science have traditionally been reluctant to deal with scientific phenomena that are not capable of being explained by known physical laws, biologists have tended to shy away from confronting philosophical questions.
(B) While science is often considered to be concerned with universal laws, the degree to which certain biological phenomena can be understood as arising from such laws is currently in dispute.
(C) Although biologists have long believed that the nature of their field called for a theoretical approach different from that taken by physicists, some biologists have recently begun to emulate the methods of physicists.
(D) Whereas physicists have achieved a far greater degree of experimental precision than has been possible in the field of biology, the two fields employ similar theoretical approaches.
(E) Since many biologists are uncomfortable with the emphasis placed by philosophers of science on the need to construct universal laws, there has been little interaction between the two disciplines.


2. The reference to the formulation of the notion of a universal “struggle for existence” (line 21) serves primarily to

(A) identify one of the driving forces of biological history
(B) illustrate one context in which the concept of uncertainty has been applied
(C) highlight the chief cause of controversy among various schools of biological thought
(D) provide an example of the type of approach employed by determinist biologists
(E) provide an example of a biological phenomenon that illustrates historical contingency


3. Which one of the following statements about biology is most consistent with the view held by determinist biologists, as that view is presented in the passage?

(A) The appearance of a species is the result of a combination of biological necessity and historical chance.
(B) The rate at which physiological characteristics of a species change fluctuates from generation to generation.
(C) The causes of a given evolutionary phenomenon can never be understood by biological scientists.
(D) The qualities that define a species have been developed according to some process that has not yet been identified.
(E) The chief physical characteristics of a species are inevitable consequences of the laws governing natural selection.


4. It can be inferred from the passage that philosophers of science view the laws of physics as

(A) analogous to the laws of history
(B) difficult to apply because of their uncertainty
(C) applicable to possible as well as actual situations
(D) interesting because of their particularity
(E) illustrative of the problem of historical contingency


5. It can be inferred from the passage that determinist biologists have tried to emulate physicists because these biologists believe that

(A) the methods of physicists are more easily understood by nonscientists
(B) physicists have been accorded more respect by their fellow scientists than have biologists
(C) biology can only be considered a true science if universal laws can be constructed to explain its phenomena
(D) the specific laws that have helped to explain the behavior of planets can be applied to biological phenomena
(E) all scientific endeavors benefit from intellectual exchange between various scientific disciplines


6. The passage suggests that the preference of many philosophers of science for the field of physics depends primarily upon the

(A) belief that biological laws are more difficult to discover than physical laws
(B) popular attention given to recent discoveries in physics as opposed to those in biology
(C) bias shown toward the physical sciences in the research programs of many scientific institutions
(D) teaching experiences of most philosophers of science
(E) nature of the phenomena that physicists study