Reductionism in contemporary biology

Abstract

The distinction between evolutionary and functional biology is a fundamental clue to a conclusive approach of one of the most controversial issues in the philosophy of biology: the possibility of reducing biology to physics and chemistry. The questions that defines the cognitive targets of functional biology are different from those that guide physics: they are functional questions, but their answers can be translated into the language of physics. On the other hand, the questions that guide evolutionary biology drive us to a kind of discourse irreducible to that of physiques.