Sep 28, 2026 · 23 min · 10 segments
Two of biology’s greatest theories completely predate direct experimental evidence. Tracing their origins could help us understand how to make the next ones.
Theories are feats of scientific imagination that illuminate and unify our understanding of reality.
Far from being mere generalizations of empirical data done after the fact, theories orient us toward the unseen, toward what lies beyond our grasp.
As systems biologist Jeremy Gunwardena puts it, If scientific research is stumbling around in a dark cellar looking for a black cat, then biology is doing so without knowing there is a cat there until one accidentally falls over it.
Theory can sometimes conjure up the cat before the accident." In biology, the cats in question are particularly elusive.
Sometimes you don't even get to fall over them because all you can see is a smile lingering after the rest of the cat melted into the air.
You may hypothesize the existence of ion channels or cell receptors, but it might take years or decades before someone else identifies them experimentally.
In the meantime, you have to hold on to the cat's smile because it is so suggestive of the whole cat and explains so much.
But imagining that an unseen entity exists is only one kind of theoretical leap in biology.
Some cats instead belong to a whole clowder, and he must figure out not only the cats themselves, but also how they interact with one another.
In other words, you must imagine how an entire biological process works, which components are involved, how they interact, and what those interactions are used for.
In some cases, theoretical biologists have made such leaps in the absence of any direct experimental evidence.
These are amongst the most imaginative achievements of the scientific mind.
Two of them, the chemiosmotic theory and the clonal selection theory of adaptive immunity, are particularly noteworthy.
They proposed mechanisms for two fundamental processes of life, how cells generate energy to power themselves and how the body mounts a defense against pathogens, before any pre-existing analogs were known.
What were the reasoning paths that led to these theories? Can they be traced at all? It is rarely acknowledged to what extent biologists' broader philosophical commitments guide their theoretical thinking.
This is especially evident in the two theories above.
In both, the scientists' philosophical background allowed them to break away from existing theoretical frameworks and offer their own, at first seemingly outlandish and bizarre, but later ultimately experimentally validated, theories.
By examining the ideas they borrowed and assumptions they questioned, we can begin to understand how such feats of imagination become feasible and learn to make others.
Theories are feats of scientific imagination that illuminate and unify our understanding of reality.
Far from being mere generalizations of empirical data done after the fact, theories orient us toward the unseen, toward what lies beyond our grasp.
As systems biologist Jeremy Gunwardena puts it, If scientific research is stumbling around in a dark cellar looking for a black cat, then biology is doing so without knowing there is a cat there until one accidentally falls over it.
Theory can sometimes conjure up the cat before the accident." In biology, the cats in question are particularly elusive.
Sometimes you don't even get to fall over them because all you can see is a smile lingering after the rest of the cat melted into the air.
You may hypothesize the existence of ion channels or cell receptors, but it might take years or decades before someone else identifies them experimentally.
In the meantime, you have to hold on to the cat's smile because it is so suggestive of the whole cat and explains so much.
But imagining that an unseen entity exists is only one kind of theoretical leap in biology.
Some cats instead belong to a whole clowder, and he must figure out not only the cats themselves, but also how they interact with one another.
In other words, you must imagine how an entire biological process works, which components are involved, how they interact, and what those interactions are used for.
In some cases, theoretical biologists have made such leaps in the absence of any direct experimental evidence.
These are amongst the most imaginative achievements of the scientific mind.
Two of them, the chemiosmotic theory and the clonal selection theory of adaptive immunity, are particularly noteworthy.
They proposed mechanisms for two fundamental processes of life, how cells generate energy to power themselves and how the body mounts a defense against pathogens, before any pre-existing analogs were known.
What were the reasoning paths that led to these theories? Can they be traced at all? It is rarely acknowledged to what extent biologists' broader philosophical commitments guide their theoretical thinking.
This is especially evident in the two theories above.
In both, the scientists' philosophical background allowed them to break away from existing theoretical frameworks and offer their own, at first seemingly outlandish and bizarre, but later ultimately experimentally validated, theories.
By examining the ideas they borrowed and assumptions they questioned, we can begin to understand how such feats of imagination become feasible and learn to make others.
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