Biology and Physics

Biology and Physics

Biology and physics are very different types of science, but why is this—and is it remediable? Are they essentially different, or is it just a historical contingency? Physics as we have it is highly mathematical, consisting of strict mathematically formulated fundamental laws, expressed as equations; biology is not very mathematical, employs loose statistical laws, if any, and makes little use of equations. You can’t be a (contemporary) physicist and not be a mathematician, but you can be a biologist, especially a zoologist, and be mathematically semi-literate (same for psychology). On the face of it, this seems strange: both are sciences, dealing with the natural material world, and yet one is heavily mathematical and the other isn’t. Part of the reason is that physics is concerned primarily with motion and biology isn’t—and motion is susceptible to mathematical treatment. But why is physics so preoccupied with motion? It is the study of the physical world and not all of that is motion; and animals also move. Zoology is not the study of animal motion, though animals move, and the things that move in physics have a composition and structure. Is biology really immature physics—will it develop into a mathematical physics of animal motion? Is it trying to be like physics and failing? Does biology await its Newton? Or is it simply barking up a different tree—doing a different kind of thing?

Let’s glance at the history. Newton came before Darwin. Physics and biology were not so markedly different before Newton (though Galileo and others were pointing it in a Newtonian direction). Newton mathematized physics with his three laws of motion and law of gravitation. Darwin never mathematized biology. They seem to be up to different things—not developing a unified science of physics and biology. Newton revolutionized physics, as is often reported, thus setting the stage for the age of Newtonian science. He had a massive influence, for good or ill.[1] Later science tried to mimic his achievements, generally failing (especially psychology). Biology deals with living things, physics with dead things (inorganic, or considered only physically). Darwin came in Newton’s wake. But suppose things had been different and Darwin had come first, revolutionizing biology. Suppose the buzzwords were not “force”, “motion”, “mass”, and “gravity” but “survival of the fittest”, “reproduction”, “species”, and (later) “gene”. Suppose biology had beaten physics to the finish line—it was the first real science, the glory of the Royal Society. It had the prestige, the power, the charisma. And suppose no one of Newton’s caliber had graced the scientific scene—no “God said let Newton be and all was light” (actually gravitation). Maybe physics doesn’t reach maturity till the twentieth century, while biology proceeds apace. Darwin is the shining scientific star and there is no miraculous Newton to compare with him. Wouldn’t the physicists look up to Darwin as their model and his theory as their loadstone? Wouldn’t they formulate their theories with reference to biology? Little to no mathematics, no obsessive focus on motion, no equations. Physical objects are modelled on organisms, atoms on cells, molecules on genes. Books like The Selfish Atom would appear and become bestsellers. Purposive language would be freely employed. Mechanism would be deplored. Gravity would be seen on analogy with (or a special case of) human and animal attraction. Heavy emphasis would be placed on evolutionary questions (how did the physical universe get here?), a keen interest taken in physical anatomy (material structure), a fascination with how physical things survive in a violent world—but not much about motion per se. Physics would look more like natural history than it does now. It would not be the queen of the sciences. It would not have the prestige it now enjoys. You could be a successful physicist and not know much mathematics. On the other hand, if Darwin had been an ace mathematician obsessed with motion, maybe biology would have looked very different, and in need of correction. As it is, however, Newton ruled the scientific universe and made everyone want to emulate him. The world was seen as a Newtonian mechanism.

I am saying all this because I believe physics has become too mathematical, or too exclusively mathematical—too unlike biology. Not that there is anything wrong with mathematics, but it skews our sense of the physical world and hence our science of it. Physics is about the nature of the physical world not about the mathematics of motion—that is just a part of it. It should be primarily concerned with evolution, anatomy, and physiology (the internal workings of material things). It should explain the transformation of one physical thing into another (metamorphosis), the creation of new kinds of object (red dwarves, black holes), the behavior of solar families (like our solar system), the microanatomy of physical cells (as atoms could have been called). We should have the mindset of a naturalist, a love of nature, an interest in classification and origins. Not anthropomorphic, to be sure, but not exclusively mathematical and abstract. To my mind, zoology is among the best sciences we have (probably the best), considered from every viewpoint, whereas physics has areas of dissatisfaction—quantum theory, space and time, the ultimate nature of matter, the ontology of force, the problem of unifying gravitation theory with particle physics, dark matter and energy. Putting it simply, we don’t know what the hell is going on in the physical universe, but the dynamics of the animal world is well understood. We have nothing like the gene-centered theory in physics—nothing all-encompassing and genuinely illuminating. In physics we easily lapse into operationalism and positivism, while in biology we deal with reality as it manifestly and intrinsically is. We have no qualms about being zoological realists, but instrumentalism is perennially popular in physics. Lions, elephants, and ants exist, no question, but fields, quarks, strings? Physics is an ontological mess for all its mathematical sophistication, but biology is on solid ontological ground. Biologists should not mimic physicists; physicists should mimic biologists. In sum, go back to the mindset of pre-Newtonian physics—the science of the material universe in all its aspects. Psychology benefited from leaving behaviorism behind and rediscovering seventeenth century psychology (as urged by Noam Chomsky); physics might benefit by rediscovering pre-mathematical physics (it can keep the mathematical stuff too). Stop talking about predicting motion on the basis of equations and start digging into the nature of matter as such. Newton himself appreciated this point, because he recognized that he had no theory of the real nature of gravitation, only a predictive mathematical apparatus. In a slogan: biologize physics! Make it more like Aristotle’s physics, but without the errors. Don’t be afraid to let go of the formulas and get down to the nitty-gritty.

Would the physics of an alien intelligence be like ours? Is our physics shaped by our peculiar traits and biological history—our taste for numbers, in particular? It seems likely that it is: our physics has a particular intellectual history and results from a combination of our biological brain and what lies outside of it—not to mention the idiosyncrasies of its heroes. We have resorted to a mathematized physics because it is the best method available given our epistemic situation, not because it is the only way physics could be done. Aliens might have developed their physics later than, and in the light of, their biology, and be mathematically inept.[2]They had many Darwins and zero Newtons. Their biology is a lot more advanced than their physics. Well, we need to be a bit more like them. As a bonus, many more people will be interested in physics now that it isn’t presented so mathematically; people will get degrees in English and physics combined. Maybe AI could be encouraged to develop this new non-mathematical physics (we especially need to downplay calculus). Science in general doesn’t need mathematics, though it can be useful, so physics could re-invent itself in a form suitable for the innumerate. You could do physics without the tedium of calculation. We are already half-way there, given that AI might take over calculation duties; we could then focus on the interesting stuff. Arithmetic always felt like a pain in the brain. I look forward to a physics without numbers. Mathematics can be left to the mathematicians.[3]

[1] There are those who believe, not without reason, that Newton was historically disastrous, as well as intellectually brilliant: for he established an ideal of knowledge that mesmerized his contemporaries and descendants, shaping (and deforming) other sciences and even the humanities. Everyone wanted to be like Newton, but the world is not exclusively Newtonian; it is also Darwinian, Shakespearean, sometimes Kafkaesque (it’s even Nabokovian in places). It isn’t all colorless billiard balls in mechanical motion.

[2] See Daniel Whiteson, Do Aliens Speak Physics? (2025) for a discussion of alien physics.

[3] I think the human mind is more naturally suited to doing biology than physics, given the way we constitutionally think; you have to be something of an oddball to resonate to a physics textbook. Darwin is a lot easier to read (I myself have read all of Charles Darwin, as I have Jane Austen—both a joy to read). I intend this paper to fuel the ego of biologists—you are not inferior to those physicist chaps! And physics really does have too much prestige in our intellectual culture, admirable though it is (the subject not the people—that is a separate question).