Biology’s Einstein Moment: Specifying Lineal Frames of Reference and Rejecting Absolute Biological History

Abstract We are currently in the midst of what I call biology’s Einstein moment. This is the rejection of absolute biological history, the idea that there is an invariant, privileged biological history against which other histories are measured or deviate from. Instead, biologists must specify theoretically and empirically motivated frames of lineal reference. This is already informing and advancing biological practice, theory, methods, and more, and is a significant and important feature of contemporary biology. Here I argue that it is worth identifying and naming this shift, and encouraging a deeper and broader embrace of it.