Theoretical biology

For a compendium of perspectives on the province of theoretical biology, click this article's accompanying tab, 'Addendum', or click Theoretical biology/Addendum, which serves as a continuation of the Main Article.

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Theoretical biology applies the tools of reason toward the goal of explaining the biological world, and its manifold aspects, through the development of models, hypotheses and eventually theories. It thereby distinguishes itself from observational and experimental biology, though without these empirical disciplines, theoretical biologists would have neither inspiration nor information with which to produce models or hypotheses, or to evaluate them. Charles Darwin's and Alfred Russel Wallace's theory of evolution by means of natural selection, or survival of the fittest, aptly illustrates the co-dependence of observation and reason in producing biological theory.