This is Biology

This is Biology: The Science of the Living World is a book by Ernst Mayr. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press published the book in 1997.

Partial summary

The book's first chapter presents a brief history of schools of thought in biology; it describes physicalism, vitalism, organicism, as well as the concept of emergence. Mayr concludes the chapter (p. 20) by indicating what he propounds is a modern consensus in biology: Organisms "obey the laws of physics and chemistry", yet "are fundamentally different from inert matter". Further, Mayr writes, organisms have a dual nature, represented by genotypes and phenotypes, not found in inanimate matter. Finally, Mayr lists phenomena unique to living organisms, and specific "capacities" (such as evolution and self-replication) they have as a result.

Later in the first part of the book, Mayr discusses various defintions of science. He notes twentieth century science saw a shift from determinism toward probabilism. Determinism was a popular paradigm during the Scientific Revolution, but had since broken down. (For example, meteorologists and oceanographers had discovered natural phenomena involve "stochastic processes".) In addition, "an attitude which favors discoveries over concepts" (p. 26) persists "into the present day". (Mayr implies personal disfavor toward this fact.) Mayr also proposes "five stages of explanation" in biology (p. 56), in the following order: observing, questioning, conjecturing, testing, and explaining.