Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1159632 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

Review
"Making Sense of Life" is about the importance of recognizing [the] tight connection between the use of language in the social domain and how it produces biological "understanding."..The central arguments of "Making Sense of Life" are made with grace and authority. Those who are unsettled by them, and who wish to take issue with Keller, could not ask for a more accomplished and eloquent adversary. -- Lisa Jardine "New Scientist" (05/10/2002)

New Scientist 16 November 2002
Evelyn Fox Keller's Making Sense of Life is strongly recommended.

About the Author
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 (both from Harvard).

Customer Reviews

making sense of epistemological cultures in life sciences
This book is a scholastic evaluation of the epistemological foundations of life sciences, as exemplified by 9 case stories in the realm of genetics and developmental biology. It adresses he question 'what type of research do scientists in these areas accept/find important, and why is that so?'. The starting point for this inquiry is a clash of scientific (epistemological) cultures the author (a professor of History and Philosophy of Science at MIT) experienced when, with her background of theoretical physics, she taught medical students on the uses of mathematical methods in biology: the author found medical students questioned her belief in the power of mathematical techniques for making predictions about a biological problem, without experimental backup of her claims. In her case stories, other communication failures between mathematical modelers and biologists are mentioned, as well as experimental work readily accepted by the biologist's mainstream community. A convergence between the two cultures seems however to be forged by the ever increasing use of information technology in biology, necessitated by the exponential growth of information in biology, the increasing knowlegeability of biologists about computers, and the computers' powers of graphical representation.

This book is a high quality scholastic effort. The author is an expert in the three different domains of scientific knowledge that are brought into play: biology (especially molecular genetics and developmental biology, which she knows through a thorough knowledge of the biological literature ); mathematical modelling (which she knows through training); and epistemology/philosophy of science (which I guess she acquired). The exemples are interesting, well chosen and thoroughly investigated. Neverteless, I have some mixed feelings about this book. It certainly is not an easy read, and it hardly is popular science (nor is it meant to be, I think). I was interested, because I am interested myself in the epistemological basis of what I'm doing (I am a medical doctor): I think that the least one can do is to reflect on the basis of one's own beliefs and critically examine the knowledge base one has learned at school (or university or whatever place people learn). It was that interest that kept me going on through the book, because it surely is not easy stuff. Nevertheless, although I am not directly involved in either molecular biology or developmental biology, the analysis presented here can easily be adapted to other subfields of biology and medicine.

So, for I guess the most critical evaluation of a book I can think of: Have I wasted my precious time reading this book? Certainly not.