Biology and Philosophy (2006) 21:119–134
Springer 2006

DOI 10.1007/s10539-005-3177-z

-1

There may be strict empirical laws in biology, after all

MEHMET ELGIN
Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Muğla University, Mehmet Elgin, Posta
Kutusu 69, 48000 Mugla/Turkey (e-mail: melgin@mu.edu.tr; phone: +90-533-761-9464; fax: +90-
252-223-8656)

Received 19 November 2004; accepted in revised form 4 March 2005

Key words: Biology, Complexity, Distinctively biological, Multiple realization, Special sciences,
Strict laws

Abstract. This paper consists of four parts. Part 1 is an introduction. Part 2 evaluates arguments
for the claim that there are no strict empirical laws in biology. I argue that there are two types of
arguments for this claim and they are as follows: (1) Biological properties are multiply realized and
they require complex processes. For this reason, it is almost impossible to formulate strict empirical
laws in biology. (2) Generalizations in biology hold contingently but laws go beyond describing
contingencies, so there cannot be strict laws in biology. I argue that both types of arguments fail.
Part 3 considers some examples of biological laws in recent biological research and argues that they
exemplify strict laws in biology. Part 4 considers the objection that the examples in part 3 may be
strict laws but they are not distinctively biological laws. I argue that given a plausible account of
what distinctively biological means, such laws are distinctively biological.

Introduction

There is a common belief among philosophers and scientists that generaliza-

tions in the special sciences (biology, economics, psychology, sociology…) have
a different status from those found in physics and chemistry. The alleged dif-
ference between the two types of generalizations can be stated as follows:
generalizations in physics are either exceptionless or they define invariant
probabilities, but special science generalizations do neither. Some philosophers
think that this difference is significant enough to render generalizations of the
special sciences as not being laws (Smart 1963; Schiffer 1991; Beatty 1995;
Earman and Roberts 1999; Woodward 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003; Earman et al.
2002). Some others, however, argue that the difference only shows there are
two kinds of laws, ceteris paribus laws and strict laws, and that special sciences
have only ceteris paribus laws (Fodor 1991; Hausman 1992, 133–151; Pietroski
and Rey 1995). Yet others argue that the traditional conception of laws being
empirical and strictly universal should be replaced by a more modest con-
ception of lawhood (Sober 1997; Mitchell 1997, 2000, 2002, 2003; Elgin 2003).
Among the latter group, while Sober and Elgin think that the requirement of
being empirical can be given up, Mitchell thinks that the requirement of strict
universality should be modified. Mitchell (2002) and Elgin (2004) also think
that ceteris paribus approach to laws in the special sciences is problematic.
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These issues are broad enough to be a subject for a thick book. For this
reason, in this paper, first and foremost, I will limit my discussion to the science
of biology. Furthermore, I will limit my discussion to whether biology can have
strict empirical laws. This is not to say that the problem that I undertake in this
paper is completely unrelated to the issues mentioned above, but only that a
kind of solution I provide for this problem is not affected by, for example,
whether there are ceteris paribus laws, or whether the traditional conception of
lawhood should be given up.
In this paper, I propose to show two things: (1) There is no in principle
reason to think that biology cannot have strict empirical laws. That is, I
propose to show that arguments for the non-existence of strict empirical laws
in biology fail. (2) I propose to show that recent research in biology, as a matter
of fact, does point to strict laws in biology.

On the impossibility of strict laws in biology

When philosophers advance arguments in support of the claim that biology

can’t have strict laws, the following are among the common reasons given:
1. Organisms are too complex to have strict universal laws: Organisms, unlike
electrons and planets, behave in different ways even within the same species
under the same circumstances; in fact it is this fact about diversity that fuels
the engine of evolution.
2. Objects of biological generalizations are constantly changing: genes,
organisms, groups, species can be thought of as the object of biological
generalizations and they are all subject to the forces of evolution; hence,
they evolve. So, it is almost impossible to have universal generalizations that
would be true of these changing entities and a generalization that is true of a
given biological entity at a given time is only contingent; it is not a law.
I argue that even if these are facts about biology, they don’t lead to the con-
clusion that biology does not have strict laws.

Complexity, multiple realizations, and non-existence of laws

Smart (1963, 56) and Rosenberg (1994, 34) argue that biological phenomena
are too complex to have laws. There are two ways of understanding the
argument from complexity to the non-existence of laws. One is to argue that
many forces come together to produce a complex system, so one cannot for-
mulate a single law that describes the behavior of this complex system (Cart-
wright 1983, 70). The other is to argue that since complex systems are multiply
realized by many different physical kinds, there cannot be any interesting laws
about them. I argue that these arguments fail to establish their conclusions.
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Multiple realizations and laws

To show that the argument from multiple realization thesis to the non-existence
of laws fails, we can do two things: One is to show that there may be functional
laws about multiply realized systems that don’t necessarily need ceteris paribus
qualifications. The second option is to argue that if a system has multiple
realizers then these realizers are the realizers of that system in virtue of certain
causal powers that all such realizers possess. The idea, then, is this: since all
realizers are realizers of a system in virtue of certain causal powers common to
them, if there are laws about these causal powers then there are interesting laws
about that system. Both of these options, as a matter of fact, are explored in
the philosophy of mind literature. Batterman (2000) explores the first option
and Shapiro (2000) explores the second.
If their arguments are sound, and I argue that they are, then we would have
shown that one of the arguments for the non-existence of laws in biology is
flawed. I will also argue that if we adopt Shapiro’s approach it is possible to
have biophysical laws whose antecedents describe physical or chemical features
of a relevant system and whose consequences describe biological properties.
Furthermore, I will argue that recent biological research shows that there are
biophysical laws of the form I describe.
Batterman (2000) argues against Kim’s (1992) claim that if a state is multiply
realized, then it does not fall under a single kind. Batterman claims that the
possibility of universal laws governing the multiply realized states can be ex-
plained in the same way that physicists explain the universality of a behavior
across different kinds of systems. The notion of universality in physics has to
do with the similarities of a behavior in diverse systems. Consider Batterman’s
example: all pendulums, whatever they are made of behave similarly – i.e., all
pendulums have periods that are directly proportional to the square root of the
length of the rod from which the bob is hanging. There is a simple physical
explanation of this universal behavior, which involves acceleration due to
gravity acting on the bob and the length of the rod. If pendulums are multiply
realized and yet still have laws, why should the fact that biological or psy-
chological states are multiply realized be a reason to think that these sciences
don’t contain laws? The short answer to this question is that it shouldn’t.
However, proponents of this view may be thinking that since organisms are too
complex there cannot be a single physical property that determines some
specific biological property.
Batterman discusses the example about the behaviors of fluids and argues
that micro details of the system are mainly irrelevant to why diverse fluids obey
the same law; however, it is not the case that all micro details are irrelevant.
Let’s consider Batterman’s example about the thermodynamics of various
systems near their critical point. The numbers that characterize the similarity
between diverse systems (fluids and magnets) near their critical points are
called critical exponents. These describe the behavior of the density of the
fluid as a function of temperature near the critical point. It is experimentally
documented that near the critical point, in all fluids, density varies with
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temperature. Batterman argues that although micro details with respect to the
critical behavior are in large part irrelevant, near their critical points, all fluids
behave the same way. That is to say, there is a law that describes the behavior
of fluids near their critical points. We have here is an example that shows that
some multiply realized systems have laws. Hence, it is incorrect to argue that
no multiply realized state can have laws.
On the other hand, Shapiro (2000) argues that the multiple realizability
thesis is not sufficiently clear. Shapiro argues that if there is a kind that all
realizers of the system fall under, then it is not appropriate to call that system
multiply realized. In Batterman’s examples, formulation of a law for so-called
multiply realized system indicate that there is a kind that all so-called realizers
fall under. Shapiro starts with the intuitively plausible idea that two corkscrews
identical in every aspect except in their colors are not multiply realized. Then,
the question arises: if difference in color is not sufficient to call a state multiply
realized, what more is needed? After evaluating different arguments for the
multiple realizability thesis, Shapiro argues that a necessary condition of being
two different kinds of realizers is that the two realizers differ in the causal
powers that are relevant to the function of a multiply realized state.
Shapiro’s claim has certain implications for Batterman’s argument. For
Batterman, it is possible for multiply realized states to be described by laws
because most of the micro details of the system (the multiply realized system)
are not relevant to the universal behavior (or function) that type of system
performs. All one needs is that the realizers of a system have some property in
common in virtue of which we observe similar behaviors in these diverse kinds
of systems. It is precisely for this reason that Shapiro insists on not calling these
realizers distinct kinds. That is, because these states are realizers of a system in
virtue of what they have in common, with respect to that system they are not
distinct kinds; however, they may differ in other respects.
Whether we call these realizers different kinds is not essential to the main
points that both Shapiro and Batterman address. Whether we follow the
tradition and call such a system multiply realized or follow Shapiro and deny
that they are distinct kinds of realizers is irrelevant. For in both cases we
would have shown that multiple realizability is no reason to think that there
are no laws in biology. In one case (Shapiro), contrary to Rosenberg there is
no in principle reason to deny that there are interesting underlying causal
generalizations about functional states, since a system performs a function in
virtue of some common causal features. In the other case, again the fact that
the state is multiply realized does not entail that there cannot be laws about it
because (again) distinct realizers of a system may exhibit some features that
are universal with respect to the behavior under consideration. One inter-
esting result that follows from our discussion is this: If there are features of
the realizers of a given system in virtue of which that system has certain
biological properties, then one can talk about bio-physical laws that map a
physical property, common to all realizers, to a relevant biological property.
Later in this paper, I will argue that this is not just a theoretical possibility.
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Recent biological research provides us with examples of biological laws of

this form.

Complexity and laws

There is another interpretation of the argument from complexity to the non-
existence of laws. Consider the following example of Cartwright (1983, 59): (1)
ceteris paribus, adding salt to water decreases the cooking time of potatoes. (2)
ceteris paribus, taking the water to higher altitudes increases the cooking time
of potatoes. Cartwright asks: what happens if we both take the water to the
higher altitude and add salt? The most plausible answer is that we can’t predict
for sure. From this Cartwright concludes that when the system is not additive
and many forces are in place, there are no unifying laws that describe the effects
of component forces. To some extent, vector addition does this in physics, but
only to the limited extent.
Cartwright (1983, 1995) argues that laws are ceteris paribus all the way down
to physics. She argues that both in physics and other special sciences (in par-
ticular economics), we have laws that describe what happens under very special
circumstances, but we don’t have laws that describe what happens when many
forces are at work. However, those who think that physics and the special
sciences are very different think that the special sciences don’t even have the
laws that describe what happens under very special circumstances. The idea is
that, since the special sciences are complex, many different forces are already in
place. Since many different forces are at work, it is unlikely that there will be
universal laws because complex systems are not additive. Since many different
forces are at work in functionally operating systems, there will always be some
exception to any generalization about them. If we try to qualify a generaliza-
tion by listing different forces at work, this would be hopeless since there is
good reason to think that the list is quite long. So the idea is this: if Cartwright
is right that even in physics in the case of only two forces it is hard to find
unifying laws, we will have less reason to think that there will be laws specific to
complex systems such as organisms.
1. If there are multiple forces acting on a system, it is hard (maybe impossible)
to formulate a law that describes the behavior of the system that results
from the operation of these different forces. In any case, this will be hard for
beings with limited cognitive capacity like us (Cartwright 1983; Rosenberg
1994, 33–38).
2. Even the simplest system in the special sciences is a complex system in the
sense that it is the result of the operation of different forces.
3. Thus, it is hard (perhaps impossible) to formulate a law that describes the
behavior of the simplest system in the special sciences. In any case, for beings
with limited capacities like us, this task is almost impossible (Rosenberg).
This is not an argument that any one has ever constructed but it is an
argument I take to be representative of the view that the special sciences
describe complex systems so they cannot have laws. Notice that Cartwright
does not agree with the conclusion of this argument, so she must disagree with
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the premise two. However, many philosophers have disagreed with the first
premise as well (Creary 1981; Forster 1988a, b; Earman and Roberts 1999).1
One can also question the second premise. It asserts that any given special
science state will be the result of the operation of many different forces. This
may be true but it does not follow that one cannot state zero force laws about
them. For example, the Hardy-Weinberg law is a zero force law and it is about
sexually reproducing organisms. Cartwright (1995) also talks about zero force
laws in economics. These zero force laws don’t have to list all the possible
interferences in their antecedents. Like the law of inertia, the antecedents of
these laws could say ‘‘in the absence of all other forces’’ where other forces are
understood clearly. For example, in the law of inertia and in the Hardy-
Weinberg law, the statement ‘‘in the absence of all other forces’’ has a clear
meaning. In the case of the law of inertia, it refers to all physical forces; in the
case of the Hardy-Weinberg law, it refers to all evolutionary forces.
This interpretation of argument from complexity is about what one can hope
for in special sciences. The argument tells us that phenomena in special sciences
are too complex to be the subject of laws even in the advanced stage of these
sciences. So, the proponents of this view argue that in the meantime one has to
figure out a way to do science in the absence of such laws (Rosenberg 1994
sometimes makes this point; see also Earman et al. 2002). Just because one must
find a way to do science in the absence of laws because one does not possess
them at this time does not mean that one should not look for universal laws.

On the contingency of biological phenomena

Beatty (1980, 1995) argues that biology cannot have strict empirical laws. His
argument in his own words is as follows:
All generalizations about the living world:
a. are just mathematical, physical, or chemical generalizations (or
deductive consequences of mathematical, physical, or chemical general-
izations plus initial conditions),
b. or are distinctively biological, in which case they describe contingent
outcomes of evolution. Whatever laws are, they are supposed to be more
than just contingently true. Therefore, there are no laws of biology (1995,
46–47).
Beatty offers a dilemma; whichever horn we pick we end up with the con-
clusion that biology doesn’t have laws. Beatty’s argument presupposes that
laws must be empirical and that they must be more than just accidentally true.
His argument may be stated as follows:

1
Earman and Roberts (1999) do not think that special sciences have laws; however, they think
physics does. They construct a different argument for the claim that special sciences don’t have
laws.
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1. All distinctively biological generalizations describe contingent outcomes of

evolution.
2. Laws are supposed to be more than just contingently true.
3. Therefore, distinctively biological generalizations are not laws.
Beatty has never provided any criterion for what ‘‘distinctively biological’’
means. For this reason, before I go on to evaluate his argument, I will first
provide a criterion for what ‘‘distinctively biological’’ means.
A law L is distinctively a law of some specific science S if and only if all
non-S concepts that L contains are mathematical concepts, and L contains
some S-concepts and these S-concepts in L are essential for the truth of L.
This definition would entail that the Hardy-Weinberg law in population
genetics is not distinctively biological. The reason is that the concept of gene,
for example, would not occur essentially in them. The criterion would, how-
ever, count physical laws as distinctively physical. For example, the law of
universal gravitation turns out to be a distinctively physical law because
physical concepts that occur in it are essential for the truth of this law. Since
these are the two features of ‘‘distinctively biological’’ that Beatty needs, for
now, I will work with this criterion, However, later, I will argue that this
criterion needs to be revised; for the only reason to defend is to save the claim
that there are no distinctively biological laws.
Let (I) be contingent initial conditions that cause the generalization ‘if P
then Q’ to hold at some later time. Beatty’s point is that ‘if P then Q’ is
merely contingent. However, Sober (1997) argues that the generalization ‘If
(I), then if P then Q’ does not have to be merely contingent. The Hardy-
Weinberg law is just like this. When we state it without the antecedent
statement that ‘no evolutionary forces are at work’ it is merely contingent but
when this statement is added to the antecedent the whole statement is a priori
and not merely contingent at all. But then the other horn of Beatty’s dilemma
takes over; that is, the new law is merely mathematical and not distinctively
biological. However, Sober’s point is still effective in that it shows that just
because the consequent of the law statement describes contingent outcomes
does not mean that the whole law statement is itself contingent. Thus, the
fact that distinctively biological generalizations describe the contingent out-
comes of evolution is no reason to think that laws in which they occur are
merely contingent.
Waters (1998) makes similar points. However, he argues that biology has
empirical generalizations that behave like laws traditionally understood. Waters
distinguishes two kinds of generalizations in biology. One he calls distributions.
These kinds of generalizations are about the distribution of a trait over a pop-
ulation(s). For example, ‘animals in the poles have thick fur’ is this kind of
generalization. The other he calls causal regularities. These kinds of generaliza-
tions are about shared properties of individuals. For example, ‘fur thickness is an
adaptation to extreme cold temperatures’ is a causal regularity. According to
Waters, Beatty’s argument shows that ‘animals in the poles have thick fur’ is just a
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historical contingency, but it does not show that there are no underlying causal
regularities behind these contingencies. Water writes:
What the evolutionary argument shows is that the distribution that nearly all
sexually reproducing organisms have Mendelian inheritance systems represent
a historical contingency. It does not provide evidence against the idea that
organisms found to segregate their genes in one-to-one ratios share some
kind of internal make-up that causes them to regularly do so (1998, 31).
This argument does not necessarily discredit Beatty’s argument. Beatty argues
that all distinctively biological generalizations are historically contingent. He
argues that even the mechanisms of evolution are themselves subject to evolution,
so they too are historically contingent. Any causal regularity that underlies them,
according to Beatty, is either physical or chemical; hence, it is not distinctively
biological. Or, it is distinctively biological in which case it is not a law. Thus,
according to Beatty, if there is a lawful generalization about the internal make-up
that causes organisms to segregate their genes in one-to-one ratios, that lawful
generalization is not distinctively biological. Beatty’s challenge is that there are
no distinctively biological generalizations that satisfy traditional conception of
laws, where this is understood as laws being strictly universal and empirical.2
However, I claim that the next section of this paper meets Beatty’s challenge.

2
J.J.C. Smart (1963, 50–61) makes a similar point. He argues that Mendelian laws are either
tautological truths or empirically false. Smart assumes that laws of nature are empirical and
universal. He concludes from these two facts that Mendelian laws are not real laws. Michael
Ruse (1970) agrees with Smart’s definition of natural law. However, he tries to show that the
Hardy-Weinberg Law satisfies the definition. In doing so, Ruse tries to establish that the HW
law is empirical and universal in the strict sense. Although Ruse makes a good case in arguing
that Hardy-Weinberg law is universal in the strict sense, he does not make an equally good
case in arguing that it is empirical. Ruse argues that HW law could be false so it is not
analytic:
It (Hardy-Weinberg Law) is not analytic statement since it could be false, for example,
the distribution could always go straight to pA1A1:OA1A2:qA2A2 (It might be added
that the discovery of the ‘law’ was a great surprise to early geneticists who assumed that
if there were more genes of one sort than another, the larger group would automatically
continue to get larger and the smaller group to get smaller.) (1970, 240).
When analytic truths are said to be a priori no one is suggesting that anyone who looks at it
would know that it is true. The point is that anyone who has sufficient knowledge of the terms
in the statement and who understand the sentence would understand its truth without needing
to do any experiment. This does not mean that people (scientists for that matter) would know
it without much effort. Thus, some analytic truths may also surprise us once we discover that
they are true by definition. Ruse is also mistaken in thinking that the Hardy-Weinberg law
could be false. It is true that the distribution could always go straight to pA1A1:OA1A2:-
qA2A2, but this does not falsify the law since this law is a conditional statement whose
antecedent states the absence of external forces. Thus, this observation about the distribution
could only show that there are external forces at work not that the Hardy-Weinberg law could
be false. Smart is right that the Hardy-Weinberg law properly formulated is a mathematical
truth; however, this does not entail that it cannot be a real law.
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Recent research concerning universal biological laws

I have argued that arguments for the claim that there are no empirical bio-
logical laws fail. In what follows, I argue that we have reasons to be optimistic
about the future of biology in discovering such laws and I will discuss recent
research concerning universal laws in biology. West et al. (1997) argue that
they can explain the origins of scaling laws. For example, they argue that they
can explain why in all organisms metabolic rate scales with 3/4 of the body
mass. However, some researchers question the claim that metabolic rate scales
with 3/4 of the body mass (Dodds et al. 2001) arguing that the exponents in
most of the published data sets are indistinguishable from 2/3.
What is crucial here is not so much whether the metabolic rate scales with 3/
4 or 2/3 of the body mass but the fact that the relation between the metabolic
rate and body mass is universal. The claim that metabolic rate scales with 3/4
of the body mass is a contingent fact, but the claim that given certain condi-
tions (physical, chemical or biological) it has to scale with 3/4 of the body mass
is not. Does the universality of a trait constitute evidence that there is an
underlying law behind it? As is well known, Crick (1968) regarded the uni-
versality of the genetic code as a frozen accident, so the universality of a trait
does not necessarily mean there is an underlying mechanism or a law that is
responsible for it. However, it does point to the following disjunction: either it
is a result of common ancestry or there is an underlying mechanism that
produced it. Thus, if a trait is universal and one can eliminate the common
ancestry hypothesis, one may expect with some degree of confidence that there
are underlying principles behind it. This is what is going on with the research I
am referring to above. What these scientists have found is that many variables
scale with the quarter powers of mass, for example 3/4 for metabolic rate, 3/4
for population density and 1/4 for lifespan (Enquist et al. 1998). These values
are universal to all living things. These properties are not the sort of things one
could explain by appealing to a common ancestry, so it is reasonable to think
that there is (or are) underlying mechanism(s) responsible for them.3 John
Whitfield in his review of this research writes:
Even critics such as Horn do not argue with the data that West, Brown and
Enquist are producing. ‘‘The relationships are so tight that there have to be
some very powerful generalizations behind the mechanics,’’ he says. But
Horn doubts the significance of fractal geometry (Whitfield 2001).
Kathryn Brown writes:
‘‘This group (referring to West, Brown and Enquist) is doing something
important: They’re constructing a metabolic theory of life,’’ comments

3
To prevent certain misunderstandings, I want to make it clear that this whole passage should not
be taken to imply that there cannot be laws about inherited traits. Here I am just considering
evidential relation between a trait and whether that evidence points to the existence of a common
mechanism.
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Carlos Martinez del Rio, an ecological physiologist at the University of

Wyoming in Laramie. ‘‘This work gives us a constraint envelope, a
parameter space, in which life can evolve that’s more limited than we
expected. All organisms must satisfy these basic biophysical laws.’’
(Brown 2001).
According to the theory referred to above, scaling laws (metabolic rate is one
of them) arise from the interplay between physical and geometric constraints
implicit in the following three principles:
It (the model that they develop) is based on three unifying principles or
assumptions: First, in order for the network to supply the entire volume of
the organism, a space-filling fractal-like branching pattern is required.
Second, the final branch of the network (such as the capillary in the
circulatory system) is a size-invariant unit. And third, the energy required
to distribute resources is minimized (West, Brown and Enquist 1997, 122).
The details of how these three principles give rise to scaling laws involve
complicated mathematics. However, these authors were able to derive, for
example, that metabolic rate must scale with 3/4 of the body mass.4 The idea
here is that given certain physical features of living things and under certain
specifiable conditions, these organisms must behave in certain ways. For
example, given the assumptions above and the physical features of organisms,
their metabolic rate must scale with the 3/4 of their body mass. Thus, metabolic
rate of an organism scales with 3/4 of the body mass because of the underlying
physical properties, which includes internal structures of an organism where
the energy and nutrient flow (this is why fractal geometry is relevant because
other than the surface areas (Euclidean property) one is taking account this
internal structure).
Our model provides a theoretical, mechanistic basis for understanding
the central role of body size in all aspects of biology. Considering the
many functionally interconnected parts of the organism that must obey
the constraints, it is not surprising that the diversity of living and fossil
organisms is based on the elaboration of a few successful designs (West,
Brown, Enquist 1997, 125).5

4
West et al. (1997) argue that a = ln n/ln(cb2) yields a = 3/4 if one assumes that the sum of cross
sectional areas of the daughter branches equals that of the parent, where n stands for number of
smaller branches from a given tube; b ” rk + 1/rk and c ” lk + 1/lk. Here k is an arbitrary level at
branching, r is radius and l is length. If one assumes that the sum of cross sectional areas of the
daughter branches equals that of the parent, one gets the value 3/4 for a. The equation here is derived
from a general model N = a ln (M/M0)/ln n, where N is the number of total branches at k, M is body
mass and M0 is a normalization scale for M. The system is called fractal because the number of
branches increase in geometric proportions as their size geometrically decrease from level 0 to N.
5
This model is even further generalized in West et al. (1999). In this later model, they don’t require
that the energy dissipated is minimized and that resource distribution networks are volume-filling.
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That all organisms have certain kind of branching structure (according to

this new theory it is fractal-like) is universal. Given the discussion above it is
either due to common ancestry or it has separately evolved (adaptive).
It is no accident, therefore, that many biological networks exhibit area-
preserving branching, even though different anatomical designs exploit
different hydrodynamic principles. Unlike the genetic code, which
evolved only once in the history of life, fractal-like distribution networks
that confer an additional effective fourth dimension have originated
many times (West, Brown and Enquist 1999, 1679).

The vast majority of organisms exhibit scaling exponents very close to 3/4
for metabolic rate and to 1/4 for internal times and distances. These are
the maximal and minimal values, respectively, for the effective surface
area and linear dimensions for a volume-filling fractal-like network. On
the one hand, this is testimony to the power of natural selection, which
has exploited variations on this fractal theme to produce the incredible
variety of biological form and function. On the other hand, it is testimony
to the severe geometric and physical constraints on metabolic processes,
which have dictated that all of these organisms obey a common set of
quarter-power scaling laws. Fractal geometry has literally given life an
added dimension (West, Brown and Enquist, 1999, 1679).

Thus, there is an adaptive advantage to having area preserving branching – i.e.,

the sum of the areas of daughter branches is equal to that of parent branches –
and metabolic rate scaling with 3/4 a of the body mass depends on having this
kind of branching structure among other things. The idea here is not that ‘‘all
organisms have area preserving branching’’ or ‘‘all organisms’ metabolic rate
scales with 3/4 of the body mass’’ is a law but that ‘‘if organisms have area
preserving branching, then their metabolic rates scale with 3/4 of their body
mass’’. What we have here is a conditional whose antecedent obtains because
of natural selection and whose consequent is a contingent fact about living
things; yet the conditional is not contingent. This example meets Beatty’s
challenge and it also exemplifies Sober’s point that just because the antecedent
or the consequent of a generalization is contingent it does not follow that the
whole conditional is contingent. It is also an answer to Rosenberg in that just
because natural selection selects for functions and functions are blind to many
physical features of their realizers it does not follow that one cannot have laws
about such systems.6

6
Rosenberg (2001) in his recent article ‘‘On Multiple Realization and the Special Sciences’’ criti-
cizes Shapiro (2000). He reiterates his earlier claims about complex systems by saying that natural
selection produces traits that are so diverse that won’t fall under a kind. However, the above
example constitutes a challenge to Rosenberg’s confidence in natural selection producing multiply
realized states that are physically distinct in every respect.
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The new theory also describes a relation among metabolic rate, body mass
and temperature. Metabolic rate is how fast an organism takes in food or other
material, uses it, and expels it. According to the new theory, metabolic rate is
determined by body mass and temperature.
Thus, metabolic rate – the rate at which organisms transform energy and
materials – is governed largely by two interacting processes: the Boltz-
mann factor, which describe the temperature dependence of biochemical
processes, and the quarter-power allometric relation, which describes
how biological rate processes scale with body size (Gillooly, Brown,
West, Savage and Charnov 2001, 2251).

This relation is described by the following equation: B M3/4 e Ei/kT where

B represents metabolic rate, M body mass, e Ei/kT is Boltzmann factor.
Are these examples laws? Of course, their truths must be shown empirically.
However, the question here is: assuming their truth, would they satisfy the
features of laws as traditionally understood? They are universal in that they
assert any organism that has the properties in question would exhibit the same
behavior. They also support counterfactuals as is evident in the last sentence.
What these examples point to is that we may be able formulate laws about all
living things (past, present, future, and in other imaginary planets). The form of
such laws is as follows: given certain physical constraints p and under certain
specifiable conditions c, all organisms exhibit behavior b where p is a physical
property, c may be physical, chemical or biological property and b is a biological
property. As mentioned above some scientists question whether the material
about fractal geometry is essential. However, they don’t question the general
project of specifying underlying biophysical laws behind these scaling laws.
They think that the project can be done without the assumptions about the
fractal geometry, but to my knowledge there is no worked-out alternative so far.

Do these examples qualify as distinctively biological laws?

I argue that they are. Remember the criterion of ‘‘distinctively biological’’

in the Section ‘on the contingency of biological phenomena’. According to
this criterion, in order for a law to qualify as a distinctive biological law,
two conditions must be met: (1) All non-biological concepts in it must be
mathematical. (2) It must contain at least some biological concepts and
these concepts must be essential to its truth. Why should we require that all
non-S concepts in a law of a specific science S are mathematical concepts?
This condition is required by Beatty’s criterion so that we can exclude every
possible biological law that may include concepts of physics or chemistry.
However, since biological properties supervene on physical and chemical
properties, it is almost inevitable that they include concepts from those
sciences. For this reason, as we move up to the levels, we should allow laws
 131

of the higher level sciences to contain concepts from the lower level
sciences. For example, biological laws should be allowed to contain physical
or chemical concepts and psychological laws should be allowed to contain
biological, chemical or physical concepts. However, what is essential to
Beatty’s arguments is that higher level laws must contain higher level
concepts and these concepts must be essential to the truth of higher level
laws.
In light of all this, the relevant question we must consider is: Can we
eliminate biological concepts in these laws without affecting their truth value?
No. The nature of these laws is such that their antecedents contain physical
or chemical conditions or geometrical constraints for biological properties in
the consequent to obtain. For example, in the consequent of one of these
laws, it is stated that ‘‘metabolic rate’’ must scale with 3/4 of ‘‘body mass’’.
No doubt these biological properties supervene on physical properties and
the conditional law itself tells us how this supervening relation holds. That is,
the relation between two biological properties in question obtains in virtue of
the fact that physical or chemical conditions in the antecedent of these
conditional laws obtain. It may be objected that by defining metabolic rate or
body mass in terms of purely physical terms, we can eliminate them without
affecting the truth value of the law in which they appear. So, in a way, my
criticism of Waters’s argument – that laws he considers will turn out not to
be distinctively biological laws by Beatty’s criterion – comes back to haunt
my own account.
Waters argues that there are causal regularities behind biological properties
and that such causal regularities may be formulated as laws traditionally
understood. Consider the following sort of generalization:

If an organism exhibits a biological property a, then that organism also

exhibits a biological property b.

Waters’ proposal is that there are causal regularities underlying a and b.

Let’s call causal regularities that describe a, X and causal regularities that
describe b, Y. Beatty can argue that by replacing a and b with X and Y, we
would get a generalization of the following sort: if an X-kind of causal regu-
larities is present then a Y-kind of causal regularities is also present. Beatty,
then, would argue that now the new generalization contains no biological prop-
erties and for this reason it is not distinctively biological.
The proposal in this paper is quite different from this. Biophysical laws
that I consider are, so to speak, a kind of bridge laws. For example, in order
for Beatty to claim that a and b can be replaced with X and Y, he must
think that there are other sorts of laws of the form: if X is present then a is
present; if Y is present then b is present. Biophysical laws considered in this
paper are like the latter kinds of laws and biological concepts in the con-
sequent of these laws are essential to their truth, so they cannot be elimi-
nated. It is in this sense that biophysical laws I consider do satisfy Beatty’s
132

revised criterion.7 Furthermore, a close attention to the examples of these

biological laws will reveal that what is essential to the occurrence of bio-
logical properties are geometric (fractal or otherwise) constraints in the
antecedents of these laws. For this reason, it may even be possible in
the future to eliminate physical concepts in their antecedents. In this case, in
the antecedents of these laws, we would have only mathematical concepts,
and in their consequences, only biological concepts that are essential to the
truth of these laws. In this case, what we would have is a law in which all
non-biological concepts are mathematical concepts and in it there are bio-
logical concepts that are essential to the truth of this law.
Perhaps, philosophers have worried needlessly about showing that biology
has laws, albeit different from physical laws. Showing that biology has strict
laws leaves very little doubt that biology is a genuine and an autonomous
science for both the critics and the proponents of laws in biology. This argu-
ment will not impress those who think that there are no laws of nature and that
science does not need laws (Van Fraassen 1980, 1989; Giere 1984, 1999), I
suggest they read my argument as follows: if there are strict physical laws, then
we must accept that there are strict biological laws.
In conclusion, not only does a priori arguments for the claim that biology
cannot have strict laws fail but also there are examples of strict laws in biology.
Thus, we have both a priori and a posteriori reasons to believe that biology has
strict laws. What about the other special sciences? Abstract and a priori
arguments against the existence of biological laws are also used to support the
idea that the special sciences have no strict laws. For this reason, showing their
inadequacy at least shows that such arguments are not reasons to believe that
special sciences don’t have laws. However, whether other special sciences can
have strict laws like biology is still an open question. The answer, perhaps, lies
in future research projects in these sciences rather than in abstract and a priori
arguments.

Acknowledgements

I thank Elliott Sober, Daniel Hausman and Ellery Eells for reading and
providing valuable comments on the earlier versions of this paper. I also
thank the unanimous referee for providing really good comments for me to
be able to clarify some of the important points of my argument. Finally, I
thank the editor of this journal, Kim Sternly, for his suggestions about the

7
My argument should not be interpreted as providing reasons for the claim that reductionism is
right. For, my argument shows that there are bridge laws that connect certain physical properties
with certain biological properties. This, by itself, is not sufficient for reductionism. For reduc-
tionism requires that to reduce a biological generalization to physics, there are two bridge laws such
that one of them connects biological properties in the antecedent with physical properties and the
other connects biological properties in the consequent with other physical properties. But my
argument does not entail that you can always find such bridge laws.
 133

organization of the paper. Of course, I am to blame for all the mistakes that
remain.

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