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What 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. Evelyn Fox Keller is Professor of
History and Philosophy of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and numerous honorary degrees, she is
the author or co-editor of ten previous books, including Keywords in Evolutionary
Biology and the 2001 L. L. Winship / PEN New England Award finalist The
Century of the Gene. |
