A Darwinian Way of Thinking

Abstract

Ernest Rutherford, a renowned physicist of the last century, is not only known for his discoveries but also for an often-quoted and apparently rude comment, “Only physics is science—all else is stamp collecting” [1, 2]. He was not wrong perhaps at least with reference to the mainstream biology of his times, although a conceptual revolution had already happened. Biology in its early days was nothing more than collecting information and classifying it, precisely what stamp collectors do with stamps instead of information. Physics on the other hand was able to predict things ahead of finding them based on sound theoretical foundation. For example the existence of Pluto, the ninth planet in the solar system, was predicted first and discovered eventually. So is the case with existence of some of the subatomic particles and phenomena which were predicted much before any experiments could demonstrate them. This hardly happened in biology at that time. Biology has come a long way since Rutherford’s days. The number of examples where some phenomenon in biology is predicted first and experimentally demonstrated later is on a steep rise.