He often critiqued purely mechanistic or information-based approaches to biology, seeking instead to understand the specificity of biological knowledge through analogies and alternative frameworks.

Between 1967 and 1970, he worked at the Laboratorio Internazionale di Genetica e Biofisica in Naples, where he made notable contributions to the field of genetics.

He was awarded the by the Dagmar and Václav Havel Foundation and the Tom Stoppard Prize for his influential essays.