The Epistemology Of Experimental Systems In Biological Research

Author : Marcel Weber
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 376 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2004-08-30
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781139453912

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Philosophy of Experimental Biology by Marcel Weber Pdf

Philosophy of Experimental Biology explores some central philosophical issues concerning scientific research in experimental biology, including genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, developmental biology, neurobiology, and microbiology. It seeks to make sense of the explanatory strategies, concepts, ways of reasoning, approaches to discovery and problem solving, tools, models and experimental systems deployed by scientific life science researchers and also integrates developments in historical scholarship, in particular the New Experimentalism. It concludes that historical explanations of scientific change that are based on local laboratory practice need to be supplemented with an account of the epistemic norms and standards that are operative in science. This book should be of interest to philosophers and historians of science as well as to scientists.

Author : Edward R. Dougherty,Michael L. Bittner
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 204 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2011-08-17
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781118104873

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Epistemology of the Cell by Edward R. Dougherty,Michael L. Bittner Pdf

"Honorable mention – Biomedicine and Neuroscience, 2011 Prose Awards" An examination of how the cell should be described in order to effectively process biological data "The fruitful pursuit of biological knowledge requires one to take Einstein's admonition [on science without epistemology] as a practical demand for scientific research, to recognize Waddington's characterization of the subject matter of biology, and to embrace Wiener's conception of the form of biological knowledge in response to its subject matter. It is from this vantage point that we consider the epistemology of the cell." —from the Preface In the era of high biological data throughput, biomedical engineers need a more systematic knowledge of the cell in order to perform more effective data handling. Epistemology of the Cell is the first authored book to break down this knowledge. This text examines the place of biological knowledge within the framework of science as a whole and addresses issues focused on the specific nature of biology, how biology is studied, and how biological knowledge is translated into applications, in particular with regard to medicine. The book opens with a general discussion of the historical development of human understanding of scientific knowledge, the scientific method, and the manner in which scientific knowledge is represented in mathematics. The narrative then gets specific for biology, focusing on knowledge of the cell, the basic unit of life. The salient point is the analogy between a systems-based analysis of factory regulation and the regulation of the cell. Each chapter represents a key topic of current interest, including: Causality and randomness Translational science Stochastic validation: classification Stochastic validation: networks Model-based experimentation in biology Epistemology of the Cell is written for biomedical researchers whose interests include bioinformatics, biological modeling, biostatistics, and biological signal processing.

Author : Richard Creath,Jane Maienschein
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0521597013

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Biology and Epistemology by Richard Creath,Jane Maienschein Pdf

This book, first published in 2000, explores a range of diverse issues in the intersection of biology and epistemology.

Author : Kevin Lattery
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 330 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 1999
Category : Electronic
ISBN : MINN:31951P00647389W

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The Epistemology of Experimental Systems in Biological Research by Kevin Lattery Pdf

Author : Richard Creath,Jane Maienschein
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0521597013

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Biology and Epistemology by Richard Creath,Jane Maienschein Pdf

This book, first published in 2000, explores a range of diverse issues in the intersection of biology and epistemology.

Author : Hans-Jörg Rheinberger
Publisher : Duke University Press
Page : 353 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2010-09-06
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780822391333

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An Epistemology of the Concrete by Hans-Jörg Rheinberger Pdf

An Epistemology of the Concrete brings together case studies and theoretical reflections on the history and epistemology of the life sciences by Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, one of the world’s foremost philosophers of science. In these essays, he examines the history of experiments, concepts, model organisms, instruments, and the gamut of epistemological, institutional, political, and social factors that determine the actual course of the development of knowledge. Building on ideas from his influential book Toward a History of Epistemic Things, Rheinberger first considers ways of historicizing scientific knowledge, and then explores different configurations of genetic experimentation in the first half of the twentieth century and the interaction between apparatuses, experiments, and concept formation in molecular biology in the second half of the twentieth century. He delves into fundamental epistemological issues bearing on the relationship between instruments and objects of knowledge, laboratory preparations as a special class of epistemic objects, and the note-taking and write-up techniques used in research labs. He takes up topics ranging from the French “historical epistemologists” Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem to the liquid scintillation counter, a radioactivity measuring device that became a crucial tool for molecular biology and biomedicine in the 1960s and 1970s. Throughout An Epistemology of the Concrete, Rheinberger shows how assemblages—historical conjunctures—set the conditions for the emergence of epistemic novelty, and he conveys the fascination of scientific things: those organisms, spaces, apparatuses, and techniques that are transformed by research and that transform research in turn.

Author : Karin Knorr Cetina
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 350 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 1999-05-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780674265165

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Epistemic Cultures by Karin Knorr Cetina Pdf

How does science create knowledge? Epistemic cultures, shaped by affinity, necessity, and historical coincidence, determine how we know what we know. In this book, Karin Knorr Cetina compares two of the most important and intriguing epistemic cultures of our day, those in high energy physics and molecular biology. Her work highlights the diversity of these cultures of knowing and, in its depiction of their differences--in the meaning of the empirical, the enactment of object relations, and the fashioning of social relations--challenges the accepted view of a unified science. By many accounts, contemporary Western societies are becoming "knowledge societies"--which run on expert processes and expert systems epitomized by science and structured into all areas of social life. By looking at epistemic cultures in two sample cases, this book addresses pressing questions about how such expert systems and processes work, what principles inform their cognitive and procedural orientations, and whether their organization, structures, and operations can be extended to other forms of social order. The first ethnographic study to systematically compare two different scientific laboratory cultures, this book sharpens our focus on epistemic cultures as the basis of the knowledge society.

Author : Hans-Jörg Rheinberger
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2023-04-21
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780226825311

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Split and Splice by Hans-Jörg Rheinberger Pdf

An esteemed historian of science explores the diversity of scientific experimentation. The experiment has long been seen as a test bed for theory, but in Split and Splice, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger makes the case, instead, for treating experimentation as a creative practice. His latest book provides an innovative look at the experimental protocols and connections that have made the life sciences so productive. Delving into the materiality of the experiment, the first part of the book assesses traces, models, grafting, and note-taking—the conditions that give experiments structure and make discovery possible. The second section widens its focus from micro-level laboratory processes to the temporal, spatial, and narrative links between experimental systems. Rheinberger narrates with accessible examples, most of which are drawn from molecular biology, including from the author’s laboratory notebooks from his years researching ribosomes. A critical hit when it was released in Germany, Split and Splice describes a method that involves irregular results and hit-or-miss connections—not analysis, not synthesis, but the splitting and splicing that form a scientific experiment. Building on Rheinberger’s earlier writing about science and epistemology, this book is a major achievement by one of today’s most influential theorists of scientific practice.

Author : Angela N. H. Creager,Elizabeth Lunbeck,M. Norton Wise
Publisher : Duke University Press
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2007-09-03
Category : Science
ISBN : 0822340682

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Science Without Laws by Angela N. H. Creager,Elizabeth Lunbeck,M. Norton Wise Pdf

A comparison of the use of model systems and exemplary cases across fields in the natural and social sciences.

Author : G. M. N. Verschuuren
Publisher : Elsevier
Page : 156 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2016-07-29
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781483297224

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Investigating the Life Sciences by G. M. N. Verschuuren Pdf

A unique introduction to the philosophy of science with special emphasis on the life sciences. Part I presents elementary but fundamental concepts and problems in epistemology and their relation to questions of scientific methodology. Part II deals with case studies from the history of biology which illustrate particular philosophical points while Part III progresses to more complex ideas as on the nature and methodology of science. Part IV discusses the limitations of scientific enquiry and its relations to other systems of knowledge and interpretation.

Author : John Bickle,Carl F. Craver,Ann-Sophie Barwich
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 363 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 2021-12-31
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781000531763

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The Tools of Neuroscience Experiment by John Bickle,Carl F. Craver,Ann-Sophie Barwich Pdf

This volume establishes the conceptual foundation for sustained investigation into tool development in neuroscience. Neuroscience relies on diverse and sophisticated experimental tools, and its ultimate explanatory target—our brains and hence the organ driving our behaviors—catapults the investigation of these research tools into a philosophical spotlight. The chapters in this volume integrate the currently scattered work on tool development in neuroscience into the broader philosophy of science community. They also present an accessible compendium for neuroscientists interested in the broader theoretical dimensions of their experimental practices. The chapters are divided into five thematic sections. Section 1 discusses the development of revolutionary research tools across neuroscience’s history and argues to various conclusions concerning the relationship between new research tools and theory progress in neuroscience. Section 2 shows how a focus on research tools and their development in neuroscience transforms some traditional epistemological issues and questions about knowledge production in philosophy of science. Section 3 speaks to the most general questions about the way we characterize the nature of the portion of the world that this science addresses. Section 4 discusses hybrid research tools that integrate laboratory and computational methods in exciting new ways. Finally, Section 5 extends research on tool development to the related science of genetics. The Tools of Neuroscience Experiment will be of interest to philosophers and philosophically minded scientists working at the intersection of philosophy and neuroscience.

Author : Richard Burian
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Medical
ISBN : 0521545285

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The Epistemology of Development, Evolution, and Genetics by Richard Burian Pdf

These essays examine the developments in three fundamental biological disciplines--embryology, evolutionary biology, and genetics. These disciplines were in conflict for much of the 20th century and the essays in this collection examine key methodological problems within these disciplines and the difficulties faced in overcoming the conflicts between them. Burian skillfully weaves together historical appreciation of the settings within which scientists work, substantial knowledge of the biological problems at stake and the methodological and philosophical issues faced in integrating biological knowledge drawn from disparate sources.

Author : H. Mohr
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 237 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2012-12-06
Category : Science
ISBN : 9783642454967

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Lectures on Structure and Significance of Science by H. Mohr Pdf

Author : Hans Bernhard Schmid,Daniel Sirtes,Marcel Weber
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2013-05-02
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9783110322583

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Collective Epistemology by Hans Bernhard Schmid,Daniel Sirtes,Marcel Weber Pdf

„We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...” This collection of essays addresses a philosophical problem raised by the first clause of these famous words. Does each signatory of the Declaration of Independence hold these truths individually, do they share some kind of a common attitude, or is there a single subject over and above the heads of its individual members that possesses a belief?“Collective Epistemology” is a name for the view that cognitive attitudes can be attributed to groups in a non-summative sense. The aim of this volume is to examine this claim, and to place it in the wider context of recent epistemological debates about the role of sociality in knowledge acquisition, in virtue and social epistemology, and in philosophy and sociology of science.

Author : Helen E. Longino
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 246 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2018-06-05
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780691187013

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The Fate of Knowledge by Helen E. Longino Pdf

Helen Longino seeks to break the current deadlock in the ongoing wars between philosophers of science and sociologists of science--academic battles founded on disagreement about the role of social forces in constructing scientific knowledge. While many philosophers of science downplay social forces, claiming that scientific knowledge is best considered as a product of cognitive processes, sociologists tend to argue that numerous noncognitive factors influence what scientists learn, how they package it, and how readily it is accepted. Underlying this disagreement, however, is a common assumption that social forces are a source of bias and irrationality. Longino challenges this assumption, arguing that social interaction actually assists us in securing firm, rationally based knowledge. This important insight allows her to develop a durable and novel account of scientific knowledge that integrates the social and cognitive. Longino begins with a detailed discussion of a wide range of contemporary thinkers who write on scientific knowledge, clarifying the philosophical points at issue. She then critically analyzes the dichotomous understanding of the rational and the social that characterizes both sides of the science studies stalemate and the social account that she sees as necessary for an epistemology of science that includes the full spectrum of cognitive processes. Throughout, her account is responsive both to the normative uses of the term knowledge and to the social conditions in which scientific knowledge is produced. Building on ideas first advanced in her influential book Science as Social Knowledge, Longino brings her account into dialogue with current work in social epistemology and science studies and shows how her critical social approach can help solve a variety of stubborn problems. While the book focuses on epistemological concerns related to the sociality of inquiry, Longino also takes up its implications for scientific pluralism. The social approach, she concludes, best allows us to retain a meaningful concept of knowledge in the face of theoretical plurality and uncertainty.