Linguistic laws in biology
Stuart Semple Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho Morgan L. Gustison
Linguistic laws, the common statistical patterns of human language, have been
investigated by quantitative linguists for nearly a century. Recently,
biologists from a range of disciplines have started to explore the prevalence
of these laws beyond language, finding patterns consistent with linguistic laws
across multiple levels of biological organisation, from molecular (genomes,
genes, and proteins) to organismal (animal behaviour) to ecological
(populations and ecosystems). We propose a new conceptual framework for the
study of linguistic laws in biology, comprising and integrating distinct levels
of analysis, from description to prediction to theory building. Adopting this
framework will provide critical new insights into the fundamental rules of
organisation underpinning natural systems, unifying linguistic laws and core
theory in biology.