Integrating Scientific Disciplines: Case Studies from the Life Sciences

ISBN-13: 9789024733422 / Angielski / Miękka / 1986 / 360 str.

W. Bechtel

Opis

Interdisciplinary research has been a popular idea with many people in the last 20 years. Academic administrators have admonished their faculty to become more interdisciplinary. Students often request the chance to pursue an interdisciplinary degree. While the issue of managing interdisciplinary projects has received a fair amount of attention by those interested in science management, interdisciplinary research has received little attention from historians, philosophers or sociologists of science or from scientists themselves. Yet, there l;lre a number of cases within the life sciences where researchers have been actively engaged in endeavors that take them across disciplinary boundaries. These are ripe for investigation by those interested in the process of science. To provide an in-depth study of some historical or contemporary cases of cross disciplinary research activity in the life sciences, a conference was held at Georgia State University in May, 1984. This conference was supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities (U. S. A. ) through their research conference program. Over a three-day period historians, philosophers, and researchers who were actively engaged in various of the life sciences discussed specific examples of interdisciplinary research and tried to analyze what was needed for successful crossing of disciplinary boundaries. After the conference, each of the participants revised their original presentations, partly in light of the discussion at the conference. The papers in this volume are the fruits of that endeavor."

Spis treści

The Nature of Scientific Integration.- I: The Coming Together of Biochemistry.- Intermediary Metabolism in the Early Twentieth Century.- Biochemistry: A Cross-Disciplinary Endeavor That Discovered A Distinctive Domain.- Editor’s Commentary.- II: Dobzhansky’s Contribution to the Evolutionary Synthesis.- Relations Among Fields in the Evolutionary Synthesis.- The Synthesis and the Synthetic Theory.- Editor’s Commentary.- III: Incorporating Developmental Biology into The Evolutionary Synthesis.- Can Embryologists Contribute to an Understandin gof Evolutionary Mechanisms?.- A Framework to Think About Evolving Genetic Regulatory Systems.- Developmental Constraints, Generative Entrenchment, and the Innate-Acquired Distinction.- On Integrating the Study of Evolution and of Development.- Editor’s Commentary.- IV: Extending Cognitive Science.- The Evolution of Communicative Capacities.- Language, Thought, and Communication.- Editor’s Commentary.- V: Infusing Cognitive Approaches into Animal Ethology.- Behavior Implies Cognition.- Intelligence: From Genes to Genius in the Quest for Control.- Cognitive Explanations and Cognitive Ethology.- Editor’s Commentary.

O autorze

William Bechtel is professor of philosophy and science studies at the University of California, San Diego. He is the editor of the journal Philosophical Psychology. He is past president of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology and Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology.