Nicolas Rashevsky

These became mathematical biophysics, biometrics, population ecology, and population genetics.

In 1938, a Russian émigré, Nicholas Rashevsky, published his major work, Mathematical Biophysics, at the University of Chicago.

His goal was to lay out a, quote, mathematical biology which could stand in the same relation to experimental biology as mathematical physics stands to experimental physics, end quote.

Rashevsky advocated for, quote, a certain autonomy of the mathematical natural sciences, which must develop in agreement with the results of experimental research, but should not be made mere handmaidens of the experimentalist.

A theoretical problem may have an interest of its own, and should not be tabooed only because at present it does not appear applicable to a definite experiment.

The history of physics shows how frequently such purely theoretical developments led, a few decades later, to the most astonishing practical results." This way, he could distinguish his new field from previous attempts to build non-quantitative, narrative theoretical biology.

Rashevsky came up with one of the first models of the neuron that was able to recapitulate the all-or-none character of neuronal firing known from experiments.

He also noted that networks of these neurons could produce complex behavior and even serve as a model of the brain.