Making Sense of Life: Explaining Biological Development with Models, Metaphors, and MachinesWhat do biologists want? If, unlike their counterparts in physics, biologists are generally wary of a grand, overarching theory, at what kinds of explanation do biologists aim? How will we know when we have made sense of life? Such questions, Evelyn Fox Keller suggests, offer no simple answers. Explanations in the biological sciences are typically provisional and partial, judged by criteria as heterogeneous as their subject matter. It is Keller's aim in this bold and challenging book to account for this epistemological diversity--particularly in the discipline of developmental biology. In particular, Keller asks, what counts as an explanation of biological development in individual organisms? Her inquiry ranges from physical and mathematical models to more familiar explanatory metaphors to the dramatic contributions of recent technological developments, especially in imaging, recombinant DNA, and computer modeling and simulations. A history of the diverse and changing nature of biological explanation in a particularly charged field, Making Sense of Life draws our attention to the temporal, disciplinary, and cultural components of what biologists mean, and what they understand, when they propose to explain life. |
Contents
1 | |
11 | |
1 Synthetic Biology and the Origin of Living Form | 15 |
2 Morphology as a Science of Mechanical Forces | 50 |
3 Untimely Births of a Mathematical Biology | 79 |
Genes and Developmental Narratives | 113 |
4 Genes Gene Action and Genetic Programs | 123 |
5 Taming the Cybernetic Metaphor | 148 |
Understanding Development with Computers Recombinant DNA and Molecular Imaging | 199 |
7 The Visual Culture of Molecular Embryology | 205 |
8 New Roles for Mathematical and Computational Modeling | 234 |
9 Synthetic Biology ReduxComputer Simulation and Artificial Life | 265 |
Understanding Development | 295 |
Notes | 305 |
References | 351 |
382 | |
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Common terms and phrases
A-Life abiogenesis activity analysis argued artificial biologists cell cellular automata century Chapter chemical claim colleagues complex concept confocal microscopy context culture cytoplasmic D'Arcy Thompson Delbrück’s developmental biology differentiation discussion Drosophila dynamics earlier early efforts embryo embryology enzyme epistemological equations evolution example explanation explanatory fact feedback function Furthermore gene action genetic program geneticists Growth and Form heredity interactions interest invoked Keller kind Leduc living logical mathematical biology mathematical models meaning mechanism ment metaphor microscope molecular biology molecules Monod and Jacob morphogen morphogenesis natural networks Nicolas Rashevsky non-living observation operon organisms origin osmotic particular Pattern Formation phenomena physical Positional Information possible problem processes production protein question Rashevsky refer regulation regulatory role scientific scientists sense simulation specific structure synthesis synthetic biology techniques term Theoretical Biology theory Thompson tion Turing Turing’s understanding University Press visual Wolpert writes wrote