Growing Explanations: Historical Perspectives on Recent Science by M. Norton Wis

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Addresses a shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations

FORMATPaperback LANGUAGEEnglish CONDITIONBrand New Publisher Description

While for much of the twentieth century scientists sought to explain objects and processes by reducing them to their component parts--nuclei into protons and neutrons, proteins into amino acids, and so on--over the past forty years there has been a marked turn toward explaining phenomena by building them up rather than breaking them down. This collection reflects on the history and significance of this turn toward "growing explanations" from the bottom up. The essays show how this strategy--based on a widespread appreciation for complexity even in apparently simple processes and on the capacity of computers to simulate such complexity--has played out in a broad array of sciences. They describe how scientists are re-ordering knowledge to emphasize growth, change, and contingency and, in so doing, are revealing even phenomena long considered elementary--like particles and genes--as emergent properties of dynamic processes. Written by leading historians and philosophers of science, these essays examine the range of subjects, people, and goals involved in changing the character of scientific analysis over the last several decades.They highlight the alternatives that fields as diverse as string theory, fuzzy logic, artificial life, and immunology offer to the ideals of explanation that have traditionally defined scientific modernity.A number of the essays deal with the mathematical and physical sciences, addressing concerns with hybridity and the materials of the everyday world. Other essays focus on the life sciences, where questions such as "What is life?" and "What is an organism?" are undergoing radical re-evaluation. Together these essays mark the broad contours of an ongoing revolution in scientific explanation. Contributors: David Aubin; Amy Dahan Dalmedico; Richard Doyle; Claude Emmeche; Peter Galison; Stefan Helmreich; Ann Johnson; Evelyn Fox Keller; Ilana Lowy; Claude Rosental; Alfred Tauber

Notes

Addresses a shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations

Back Cover

"M. Norton Wise has orchestrated a volume of cutting-edge work exploring the sea change in contemporary models of explanation fueled by advances in computation, simulation, and the new sciences of complexity. The authors illustrate how, across a wide spectrum of disciplines, new strategies based on 'growing explanations' to understand the emergent behaviors of systems constructed from the bottom up are replacing the traditional 'reductionist' credo of explaining complex phenomena in terms of simple entities. An important and timely volume for anyone interested in science studies."-Timothy Lenoir, author ofInstituting Science: The Cultural Production of Scientific Disciplines

Author Biography

M. Norton Wise is Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a coauthor of Energy and Empire: A Biographical Study of Lord Kelvin and the editor of The Values of Precision.

Table of Contents

Introduction: dynamincs all the way up / M. Norton Wise 1Part I Mathematics, physics, and engineering Elementary particles? `1. Mirror symmetry: persons, values, and objects / Peter Galison 23Nonlinear dynamics and chaos 2. Chaos, disorder, and mixing: a new fin-de-siecle image of science? / Amy Dahan Dalmedico 673. Forms of explanation in the catastrophe theory of Rene Thjom: topology, morphogenesis, and structuralism / David Aubin 95Coping with complexity in technology 4. From Boeing to Berkeley: civil engineers, the cold war, and the origins of finite element analysis / Ann Johnson 1335. Fuzzyfying the world: social practices of showing the properties of fuzzy logic / Claude Rosental 159Part II The organism, the self, and (artificial) life Self-Organization 6. Marrying the premodern to the postmodern: computers and organisms after World War II / Evelyn Fox Keller 181Immunology 7. Immunology and the enigma of selfhood / Alfred I. Tauber 2018. Immunology of AIDS: growning explanations and developing instruments / Ilana Lowy 222Artificial Life 9. Artificial life support: some nodes in the Alife ribotype / Richard Doyle 25110. The word for world is computer: simulating second natures in artificial life / Stefan Helmreich 27511. Constructing and explaining emergence in artificial life: on paradigms, ontodefinitions, and general knowledge in biology / Claus Emmeche 301Afterword 327Contributors 333Index 337

Review

"M. Norton Wise has orchestrated a volume of cutting-edge work exploring the sea change in contemporary models of explanation fueled by advances in computation, simulation, and the new sciences of complexity. The authors illustrate how, across a wide spectrum of disciplines, new strategies based on 'growing explanations' to understand the emergent behaviors of systems constructed from the bottom up are replacing the traditional 'reductionist' credo of explaining complex phenomena in terms of simple entities. An important and timely volume for anyone interested in science studies."--Timothy Lenoir, author of Instituting Science: The Cultural Production of Scientific Disciplines "Growing Explanations registers the profound shift in many domains of science--from chaos theory to functional genomics--giving epistemological priority to complex and emergent phenomena. Anyone interested in the nature of contemporary science, especially the central role of the computer, will find this a fascinating read."--Angela N. H. Creager, Princeton University " ... well written and contains illuminating ideas ... I recommend it ... for those who enjoy provocative stimulation."--Biologist , Volume 52, Number 5, October 2005

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Addresses a shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations

Review Quote

"M. Norton Wise has orchestrated a volume of cutting-edge work exploring the sea change in contemporary models of explanation fueled by advances in computation, simulation, and the new sciences of complexity. The authors illustrate how, across a wide spectrum of disciplines, new strategies based on 'growing explanations' to understand the emergent behaviors of systems constructed from the bottom up are replacing the traditional 'reductionist' credo of explaining complex phenomena in terms of simple entities. An important and timely volume for anyone interested in science studies."-Timothy Lenoir, author of Instituting Science: The Cultural Production of Scientific Disciplines"Growing Explanations registers the profound shift in many domains of science-from chaos theory to functional genomics-giving epistemological priority to complex and emergent phenomena. Anyone interested in the nature of contemporary science, especially the central role of the computer, will find this a fascinating read."-Angela N. H. Creager, Princeton University" . . . well written and contains illuminating ideas . . . I recommend it . . . for those who enjoyprovocative stimulation."--Biologist , Volume 52, Number 5, October 2005

Promotional "Headline"

Addresses a shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations

Details ISBN0822333198 Pages 360 Series Science and Cultural Theory Language English ISBN-10 0822333198 ISBN-13 9780822333197 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY 501 Year 2004 Imprint Duke University Press Subtitle Historical Perspectives on Recent Science Place of Publication North Carolina Country of Publication United States Short Title GROWING EXPLANATIONS Publisher Duke University Press Edited by M. Norton Wise DOI 10.1604/9780822333197 UK Release Date 2004-11-24 AU Release Date 2004-11-24 NZ Release Date 2004-11-24 US Release Date 2004-11-24 Author M. Norton Wise Publication Date 2004-11-24 Illustrations 11 figures Audience Professional & Vocational We've got this

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