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Title Philosophical perspectives on the engineering approach in biology : living machines? / edited by Sune Holm, Maria Serban
Edition 1st
Published London : Routledge, 2020

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Description 1 online resource : illustrations (black and white)
Series History and Philosophy of Biology Ser
History and Philosophy of Biology Ser
Contents Cover -- Half Title -- Series -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of contributors -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part 1 Theoretical issues -- 1 Restless machines -- 2 On being the right size, revisited: the problem with engineering metaphors in molecular biology -- 3 A roomful of robovacs: how to think about genetic programs -- 4 Living machines: the extent and limits of the machine metaphor -- Part 2 Methodological issues -- 5 Beyond machine-like mechanisms -- 6 Magnetized memories: analogies and templates in model transfer
7 Biological robustness: design, organization, and mechanisms -- Part 3 Societal issues -- 8 The machine analogy in bioethics -- 9 The machine metaphor in science and science communication -- Editors' postscript -- Index
Summary "Philosophical perspectives on the engineering approach in biology provides a philosophical examination of what has been called the most powerful metaphor in biology : The machine metaphor. The chapters collected in this volume discuss the idea that living systems can be understood through the lens of engineering methods and machine metaphors from both historical, theoretical, and practical perspectives. In their contributions the authors examine questions about scientific explanation and methodology, the interrelationship between science and engineering, and the impact that the use of engineering metaphors in science may have for bioethics and science communication, such as the worry that its wide application reinforces public misconceptions of the nature of new biotechnology and biological life. The book also contains an introduction that describes the rise of the machine analogy and the many ways in which it plays a central role in fundamental debates about e.g. design, adaptation and reductionism in the philosophy of biology. The book will be useful as a core reading to professionals as well as graduate and undergraduate students in courses of philosophy of science and for life scientists taking courses in philosophy of science and bioethics"-- Provided by publisher
Notes Description based on CIP data; resource not viewed
Subject Biology -- Philosophy.
Bioengineering -- Moral and ethical aspects
Bioethics.
Bioengineering -- Moral and ethical aspects.
Bioethics.
Biology -- Philosophy.
Form Electronic book
Author Holm, Sune, editor
Serban, Maria, editor
ISBN 9781351212229
1351212222
9781351212236
1351212230
9781351212212
1351212214
9781351212243
1351212249