Making Sense of Life : Explaining Biological Development with Models, Metaphors, and Machines

個数：

Making Sense of Life : Explaining Biological Development with Models, Metaphors, and Machines

  • 提携先の海外書籍取次会社に在庫がございます。通常3週間で発送いたします。
    【重要ご説明事項】
    1. 納期遅延や、ご入手不能となる場合が若干ございます。
    2. 複数冊ご注文の場合、分割発送となる場合がございます。
    3. 美品のご指定は承りかねます。
  • 【入荷遅延について】
    世界情勢の影響により、海外からお取り寄せとなる洋書・洋古書の入荷が、表示している標準的な納期よりも遅延する場合がございます。
    おそれいりますが、あらかじめご了承くださいますようお願い申し上げます。
  • ◆画像の表紙や帯等は実物とは異なる場合があります。
  • ◆ウェブストアでの洋書販売価格は、弊社店舗等での販売価格とは異なります。
    また、洋書販売価格は、ご注文確定時点での日本円価格となります。
    ご注文確定後に、同じ洋書の販売価格が変動しても、それは反映されません。
  • 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 400 p.
  • 言語 ENG
  • 商品コード 9780674012509
  • DDC分類 570.1

基本説明

New in paperback. Hardcover was published in 2002.

Full 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.

Contents

Preface Introduction PART ONE Models: Explaining Development without the Help of Genes 1. Synthetic Biology and the Origin of Living Form 2. Morphology as a Science of Mechanical Forces 3. Untimely Births of a Mathematical Biology PART TWO Metaphors: Genes and Developmental Narratives 4. Genes, Gene Action, and Genetic Programs 5. Taming the Cybernetic Metaphor 6. Positioning Positional Information PART THREE Machines: Understanding Development with Computers, Recombinant DNA, and Molecular Imaging 7. The Visual Culture of Molecular Embryology 8. New Roles for Mathematical and Computational Modeling 9. Synthetic Biology Redux-Computer Simulation and Artificial Life Conclusion: Understanding Development Notes References Index