This open access book offers an original approach to biological theory and research - that of mistake theory. The potential for, and making of, mistakes is found across biological systems and scales. This reflects a universal framework that marks biology out as a normative special science distinct from physics and inorganic chemistry: neither electrons nor minerals make mistakes. It is common to think that mistakes are a purely human phenomenon; to apply them to biology as a whole, one might object, is simply to anthropomorphise nature. Mistake theory is not, however, a purely philosophical exercise and this book gives examples across the spectrum of living systems, from the small and/or the subsystemic - e.g. bacteria, cells, enzymes, neurons, platelets - to larger, whole systems - macro-organisms and even groups and populations. Specific empirical evidence is investigated, and novel hypotheses proposed. This ensures the book is of interest to philosophers of biology, biologists, graduate students in both disciplines, and all those with a keen interest in the interchange between philosophy and science, which does not happen nearly as often as it needs to.

David S. Oderberg is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading, UK. He is the author of many books and articles in metaphysics, philosophy of biology, moral philosophy, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of religion, among other areas. He was Principal Investigator on the John Templeton Foundation grant, ‘Mistakes in Living Systems: A New Conceptual Framework for the Study of Purpose in Biology’ (2021–24), part of Templeton grant 62220, Agency, Directionality, and Function. He is currently Co-Investigator, with Principal Investigator Jonathan Hill and a team of biologists, on the John Templeton Foundation grant, ‘Mistakes in Action: From the Normativity of Goal-Directedness to Novel Investigations of Avian Nest Construction’ (2025–27). His website is www.davidsoderberg.uk. The opinions expressed in this monograph are those of the author and not those of the John Templeton Foundation.