The systematic study of the biological sciences themselves—a second-order discipline that takes molecular biology, ecology, evolutionary biology, physiology, and related fields as its objects of inquiry. Biological metasciences ask meta-level questions about biological knowledge: How do biologists know what they claim to know? What methods do different biological disciplines use? How does biological knowledge change over time? How do social, cultural, and institutional contexts shape biology? What are the limits of biological understanding? Biological metasciences are the biological sciences reflecting on themselves—the attempt to understand what biology is, what it can achieve, and how it relates to other forms of knowledge. They're essential for biology to be self-aware rather than merely productive, for biologists to understand their own practices rather than just practicing them.
Example: "His biological metasciences research examined how the concept of the gene has changed over the past century—from abstract unit to molecular sequence to complex regulatory network. Biology studying its own concepts reveals that even the most fundamental categories evolve."
by Abzugal March 16, 2026
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