Starting with the Greeks, culminating in Aristotle, and developed over several thousand years, the rational account of nature analyzed it precisely as mobile and changeable (this account of nature was taken as a foundation for natural theology and as an explanation of various Catholic doctrines).
Starting with 17th and 18th Century Europeans, the rational account of nature analyzed it not precisely as mobile, but rather as quantified and/ or in such a way that took its mobility and changeability for granted and therefore did not analyze it as such (this account is now called “science”).
For the last few hundred years, people have found various ways to misunderstand the distinction between these two analyses: either ignoring the reality of one or denying it or being oblivious to it (the last is the most common); or thinking that there must be a zero-sum-game between the two accounts of natural science; or thinking that if something found in one that it must be found in the other (like teleology or falsifiability); or thinking that the difference between them can be reduced to a concern with different sorts of causes or explanation in accord with different adverbs (like “one seeks why, and the other seeks how”); or thinking that one must form some hybrid science out of both of them (like “teleological/ directed evolution”).
