Crystals, Fabrics, and Fields: Metaphors of Organicism in Twentieth-Century Developmental Biology

Description

Acclaimed theorist and social scientist Donna Jeanne Haraway uses the work of pioneering developmental biologists Ross G. Harrison, Joseph Needham, and Paul Weiss as a springboard for a discussion about a shift in developmental biology from a vitalism-mechanism framework to organicism. The book deftly interweaves Thomas Kuhn's concept of paradigm change into this wide-ranging analysis, emphasizing the role of model, analogy, and metaphor in the paradigm and arguing that any truly useful theoretical system in biology must have a central metaphor. Acknowledgements - ix 1. Paradigm and Metaphor - 1 2. The Elements of Organicism - 33 3. Ross G. Harrison - 64 A Pioneer in the Construction of an Organismic Paradigm - 64 The Silliman Lectures - 94 4. Joseph Needham - 101 A Great Amphibian - 101 Mature Perspectives - 138 5. Paul Weiss - 147 From Fields to Molecular Biology - 147 The Living System - 188 6. Conclusion: Of Paradigms and Scientists - 188 References - 207 Index - 221