Title: Philosophy of experimental biology /
Authors: Weber, Marcel.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press,
Year: 2005
Subjects: Biology, Experimental Philosophy.; Biology; Philosophy; Biological Phenomena; Research Design
Abstract: "Philosophy of Experimental Biology explores some central philosophical issues concerning scientific research in modern 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 modern life science researchers and also integrates recent developments in historical scholarship, in particular the New Experimentalism.
Contents: Introduction -- Reductionism and the nature of explanations --Discovery: Solving biological problems -- Scientific inference: Testing hypotheses -- Experimental systems: A life of their own? -- Model organisms: Of flies and elephants -- Reference and conceptual change: Out of Mendel's garden? -- Developmental biology and the genetic program: Explaining ontogeny -- Scientific realism: In search of the truth.