For much of the twentieth century scientists sought to explain
objects and processes by reducing them to their components-nuclei
into protons and neutrons, proteins into amino acids, and so on-but
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
reordering 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 bring to the forms 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 contours of an
ongoing revolution in scientific explanation. Contributors. David
Aubin, Amy Dahan Dalmedico, Richard Doyle, Claus Emmeche, Peter
Galison, Stefan Helmreich, Ann Johnson, Evelyn Fox Keller, Ilana
Loewy, Claude Rosental, Alfred Tauber
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