ABSTRACT
Modern biology, both in its acceptance of the theory of natural selection as the motor of evolution, and in its strong tendency towards ontological reductionism, is materialist in its metaphysics. Organisms, it is assumed, are complex biochemical machines and nothing more; and it is commonly believed that the biochemistry will turn out to be nothing over and above the absolutely fundamental physical particles (the quarks or whatever) in certain complex relations. Life at its evolutionary beginning was but peculiar chemistry and it is difficult to see, on that assumption, how modern evolved life can be anything other than more complicated peculiar chemistry. Humans appear in this story, but only towards the end, in a short footnote, recording a brief redistribution of the fundamental particles and forces.
