2 OUTBREAKS OF LAWLESSNESS IN RECENT PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY

John Beatty (1995) and Alexander Rosenberg (1994) have argued against the claim that there are laws in biology. Beatty's main reason is that evolution is a process full of contingency, but he also takes the exi stence of relative significance controversies in biology and the popul arity of pluralistic approaches to a variety of evolutionary questions to be evidence for biology's lawlessness. Rosenberg's main argument a ppeals to the idea that biological properties supervene on large numbe rs of physical properties, but he also develops case studies of biolog ical controversies to defend his thesis that biology is best understoo d as an instrumental discipline. The present paper assesses their argu ments.