 As is the case for most apparent novelties, closer inspection reveals a pre-history for the philosophy of biology (Grene &amp; Depew 2004). In the 1950s the biologist J. H. Woodger and the philosopher Morton Beckner both published major works on the philosophy of biology (Woodger 1952; Beckner 1959), but these did not give rise to a subsequent philosophical literature (though see Ruse 1988). Some philosophers of science also made claims about biology based on general epistemological and metaphysical considerations. One of the most famous examples is J. J. C. Smart’s claim that the biology is not an autonomous science, but a technological application of more basic sciences, like “radio-engineering” (Smart 1959, 366). Like engineering, biology cannot make any addition to the laws of nature. It can only reveal how the laws of physics and chemistry play out in the context of particular sorts of initial and boundary conditions (for more recent discussions of biological laws, see Beatty 1995; Brandon 1997; Mitchell 1997; Sober 1997; Waters 1998). Even in 1969 the zoologist Ernst Mayr could complain that books with ‘philosophy of science’ in the title were all misleading and should be re-titled ‘philosophy of physics’ (Mayr 1969). It is worth noting however that philosophers of science such as Carl G. Hempel (1965) and Ernest Nagel (1961) offered accounts of functional explanation as found in the biological sciences. The encouragement of prominent biologists such as Mayr and F. J. Ayala (Ayala 1976; Mayr 1982) was one factor in the emergence of the new field. Another factor was that several philosophers of science including Robert Brandon, Phillip Kitcher, Elisabeth Lloyd, Sahotra Sarkar, Elliott Sober, and William C. Wimsatt did research at Harvard University with the likes of Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Lewontin, and Richard Levins (Callebaut 1993). The first sign of philosophy of biology becoming a mainstream part of philosophy of science was the publication of David Hull’s Philosophy of Biological Science in the prominent Prentice-Hall Foundations of Philosophy series (Hull 1974). From then on the field developed rapidly. Robert Brandon could say of the late 1970’s that “I knew five philosophers of biology: Marjorie Grene, David Hull, Michael Ruse, Mary Williams and William Wimsatt.” (Brandon 1996, xii–xiii) By 1986, however, there were more than enough to fill the pages of Michael Ruse’s new journal Biology and Philosophy. This trend has only increased with the introduction of additional journals such as Biological Theory, Philosophy and Practice of Biology, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, and Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. 