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Explaining Photosynthesis - Models of Biochemical Mechanisms, 1840-1960 (Hardcover, 2015 ed.)
Loot Price: R4,002
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Explaining Photosynthesis - Models of Biochemical Mechanisms, 1840-1960 (Hardcover, 2015 ed.)
Series: History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences, 8
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
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Recounting the compelling story of a scientific discovery that took
more than a century to complete, this trail-blazing monograph
focuses on methodological issues and is the first to delve into
this subject. This book charts how the biochemical and biophysical
mechanisms of photosynthesis were teased out by succeeding
generations of scientists, and the author highlights the
reconstruction of the heuristics of modelling the
mechanism-analyzed at both individual and collective levels.
Photosynthesis makes for an instructive example. The first
tentative ideas were developed by organic chemists around 1840,
while by 1960 an elaborate proposal at a molecular level, for both
light and dark reactions, was established. The latter is still
assumed to be basically correct today. The author makes a
persuasive case for a historically informed philosophy of science,
especially regarding methodology, and advocates a history of
science whose narrative deploys philosophical approaches and
categories. She shows how scientists' attempts to formulate,
justify, modify, confirm or criticize their models are best
interpreted as series of coordinated research actions, dependent on
a network of super- and subordinated epistemic goals, and guided by
recurrent heuristic strategies. With dedicated chapters on key
figures such as Otto Warburg, who borrowed epistemic fundamentals
from other disciplines to facilitate his own work on
photosynthesis, and on more general topics relating to the
development of the field after Warburg, this new work is both a
philosophical reflection on the nature of scientific enquiry and a
detailed history of the processes behind one of science's most
important discoveries.
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