It has long been thought that science is our best hope for realizing objective knowledge, but that, to deliver on this promise, it must be value free. Things are not so simple, however, as recent work in science studies makes clear. The contributors to this volume investigate where and how values are involved in science, and examine the implications of this involvement for ideals of objectivity.

The theory of evolution has fundamentally changed our view of the universe and our place in it. By providing a radically new vision of the origin of human beings, it challenged long-held assumptions about our own significance and undermined the major arguments for the existence of God. But almost 150 years after the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species these implications are still not properly understood, and in some sectors of society they are actively resisted.
The last decade has also seen the rise of a new field, evolutionary psychology, which takes the theory of evolution to...

The great dream of philosophers and scientists for millennia has been to give us a complete account of the order of things. A powerful articulation of such a dream in this century has been found in the idea of a unity of science. With this manifesto, John DuprE systematically attacks the ideal of scientific unity by showing how its underlying assumptions are at odds with the central conclusions of science itself. In its stead, the author gives us a metaphysics much more in keeping with what science tells us about the world. Elegantly written and compellingly argued, this provocative book will...

John Dupre warns that our understanding of human nature is being distorted by two faulty and harmful forms of pseudo-scientific thinking. Not just in the academic world but in everyday life, we find one set of experts who seek to explain the ends at which humans aim in terms of evolutionary theory, while the other set uses economic models to give rules of how we act to achieve those ends. Dupre demonstrates that these theorists' explanations do not work and that, if taken seriously, their theories tend to have dangerous social and political consequences. For these reasons, it is important to...

150 Jahre nach dem Erscheinen von Darwins Die Entstehung der Arten und ausgehend von der Frage nach den Folgen der Darwinschen Theorie fr das Selbstverstndnis des Menschen und fr das Verstndnis der menschlichen Kultur entfaltet John Dupr in Darwins Vermchtnis ein Bild der Evolution aus philosophischer Sicht. Scharfsinnig und provokant verteidigt er die Evolutionstheorie sowohl gegen ihre Liebhaber als auch gegen ihre Kritiker. Auch wenn sie nicht in der Lage ist, alle Facetten des menschlichen Lebens zu erklren, ist sie doch der entscheidende Schritt hin zu einer naturalistischen Erklrung der...

In 2003 the Human Genome Project announced that it had achieved a stunning scientific breakthrough: the full map of the human genome, and with it our first complete picture of the basic building block of human life. Since then, boasts about the benefits--and warnings of the dangers--of genomics have remained front-page news.
For the nonscientist, the claims and counterclaims are dizzying--what does it really mean to understand the genome? Barry Barnes and John Dupre offer an answer to that question and many more in Genomes and What to Make of Them, a clear and lively account of the...

John Dupre explores recent revolutionary developments in biology and considers their relevance for our understanding of human nature and human society. Epigenetics and related areas of molecular biology have eroded the exceptional status of the gene and presented the genome as fully interactive with the rest of the cell. Developmental systems theory provides a space for a vision of evolution that takes full account of the fundamental importance of developmental processes. Dupre shows the importance of microbiology for a proper understanding of the living world, and reveals how it subverts...