Philosophy of biology versus philosophy of physics.

Not long ago I witnessed a remarkable interchange between two great thinkers: the cosmologist and physicist John Archibald Wheeler, and the philosopher of science Sir Karl Popper. Popper and Wheeler were meeting with a dozen other philosophers and scientists at Schloss Kronberg, the Victorian castle built by Kaiser Wilhelm's mother outside of Frankfurt during the closing years of the nineteenth century. The group was gathered in the late afternoon around an enormous round table in the Grand Salon, and Wheeler had just delivered a brilliant exposition of his own interpretation of quantum mechanics. Popper turned to him and quietly said: "What you say is contradicted by biology ". It was a dramatic moment A hush fell around the table. The physicists present appeared to be taken aback. And then the biologists, including Sir Peter Medawar, the Nobel prizewinner who was chairing the meeting, broke into a delighted applause. It was as if someone had finally said what they had all been thinking2.