Rebels, Mavericks, and Heretics In Biology

Download Rebels, Mavericks, and Heretics In Biology PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300150547
Total Pages : 412 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (1 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Rebels, Mavericks, and Heretics In Biology by : William Dritschilo

Download or read book Rebels, Mavericks, and Heretics In Biology written by William Dritschilo and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first devoted to modern biology's innovators and iconoclasts: men and women who challenged prevailing notions in their fields. Some of these scientists were Nobel Prize winners, some were considered cranks or gadflies, some were in fact wrong. The stories of these stubborn dissenters are individually fascinating. Taken together, they provide unparalleled insights into the role of dissent and controversy in science and especially the growth of biological thought over the past century. Each of the book's nineteen specially commissioned chapters offers a detailed portrait of the intellectual rebellion of a particular scientist working in a major area of biology--genetics, evolution, embryology, ecology, biochemistry, neurobiology, and virology as well as others. An introduction by the volume's editors and an epilogue by R. C. Lewontin draw connections among the case studies and illuminate the nonconforming scientist's crucial function of disturbing the comfort of those in the majority. By focusing on the dynamics and impact of dissent rather than on winners who are credited with scientific advances, the book presents a refreshingly original perspective on the history of the life sciences. Scientists featured in this volume: Alfred Russel Wallace Hans DrieschWilhelm JohannsenRaymond Arthur DartC. D. DarlingtonRichard GoldschmidtBarbara McClintockOswald T. AveryRoger SperryLeon CroizatVero Copner Wynne-EdwardsPeter MitchellHoward TeminMotoo KimuraWilliam D. HamiltonCarl WoeseStephen Jay GouldThelma RowellDaniel S. Simberloff

Outsider Scientists

Download Outsider Scientists PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022607854X
Total Pages : 387 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (26 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Outsider Scientists by : Oren Harman

Download or read book Outsider Scientists written by Oren Harman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-12-11 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Outsider Scientists describes the transformative role played by “outsiders” in the growth of the modern life sciences. Biology, which occupies a special place between the exact and human sciences, has historically attracted many thinkers whose primary training was in other fields: mathematics, physics, chemistry, linguistics, philosophy, history, anthropology, engineering, and even literature. These outsiders brought with them ideas and tools that were foreign to biology, but which, when applied to biological problems, helped to bring about dramatic, and often surprising, breakthroughs. This volume brings together eighteen thought-provoking biographical essays of some of the most remarkable outsiders of the modern era, each written by an authority in the respective field. From Noam Chomsky using linguistics to answer questions about brain architecture, to Erwin Schrödinger contemplating DNA as a physicist would, to Drew Endy tinkering with Biobricks to create new forms of synthetic life, the outsiders featured here make clear just how much there is to gain from disrespecting conventional boundaries. Innovation, it turns out, often relies on importing new ideas from other fields. Without its outsiders, modern biology would hardly be recognizable.

Outsider Scientists

Download Outsider Scientists PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226078403
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (784 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Outsider Scientists by : Oren Harman

Download or read book Outsider Scientists written by Oren Harman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-12-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Outsider Scientists describes the transformative role played by “outsiders” in the growth of the modern life sciences. Biology, which occupies a special place between the exact and human sciences, has historically attracted many thinkers whose primary training was in other fields: mathematics, physics, chemistry, linguistics, philosophy, history, anthropology, engineering, and even literature. These outsiders brought with them ideas and tools that were foreign to biology, but which, when applied to biological problems, helped to bring about dramatic, and often surprising, breakthroughs. This volume brings together eighteen thought-provoking biographical essays of some of the most remarkable outsiders of the modern era, each written by an authority in the respective field. From Noam Chomsky using linguistics to answer questions about brain architecture, to Erwin Schrödinger contemplating DNA as a physicist would, to Drew Endy tinkering with Biobricks to create new forms of synthetic life, the outsiders featured here make clear just how much there is to gain from disrespecting conventional boundaries. Innovation, it turns out, often relies on importing new ideas from other fields. Without its outsiders, modern biology would hardly be recognizable.

Dreamers, Visionaries, and Revolutionaries in the Life Sciences

Download Dreamers, Visionaries, and Revolutionaries in the Life Sciences PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022656990X
Total Pages : 333 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (265 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Dreamers, Visionaries, and Revolutionaries in the Life Sciences by : Oren Harman

Download or read book Dreamers, Visionaries, and Revolutionaries in the Life Sciences written by Oren Harman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-07-20 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the conditions that foster true novelty and allow visionaries to set their eyes on unknown horizons? What have been the challenges that have spawned new innovations, and how have they shaped modern biology? In Dreamers, Visionaries, and Revolutionaries in the Life Sciences, editors Oren Harman and Michael R. Dietrich explore these questions through the lives of eighteen exemplary biologists who had grand and often radical ideas that went far beyond the run-of-the-mill science of their peers. From the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who coined the word “biology” in the early nineteenth century, to the American James Lovelock, for whom the Earth is a living, breathing organism, these dreamers innovated in ways that forced their contemporaries to reexamine comfortable truths. With this collection readers will follow Jane Goodall into the hidden world of apes in African jungles and Francis Crick as he attacks the problem of consciousness. Join Mary Lasker on her campaign to conquer cancer and follow geneticist George Church as he dreams of bringing back woolly mammoths and Neanderthals. In these lives and the many others featured in these pages, we discover visions that were sometimes fantastical, quixotic, and even threatening and destabilizing, but always a challenge to the status quo.

A History of Biology

Download A History of Biology PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691253927
Total Pages : 448 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A History of Biology by : Michel Morange

Download or read book A History of Biology written by Michel Morange and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-08-15 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive history of the biological sciences from antiquity to the modern era This book presents a global history of the biological sciences from ancient times to today, providing needed perspective on the development of biological thought while shedding light on the field's upheavals and key breakthroughs through the ages. Michel Morange brings to life the dynamic interplay of science, society, and biology’s many subdisciplines, enabling readers to better appreciate the interdisciplinary exchanges that have shaped the field over the centuries. Each chapter of this incisive book focuses on a specific period in the history of biology, describing the major transformations that occurred, the enduring scientific concerns behind these changes, and the implications of yesterday's science for today's. Morange covers everything from the first cell theory to the origins of the concept of ecosystems, and offers perspectives on areas that are often neglected by historians of biology, such as ecology, ethology, and plant biology. Along the way, he highlights the contributions of technology, the important role of hypothesis and experimentation, and the cultural contexts in which some of the most breathtaking discoveries in biology were made. Unrivaled in scope and written by a world-renowned historian of science, A History of Biology is an ideal introduction for students and experts alike, and essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the present state of biological knowledge.

The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness

Download The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393339998
Total Pages : 462 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (933 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness by : Oren Harman

Download or read book The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness written by Oren Harman and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-06-20 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the intellectual journey of eccentric American genius George Price, who tried to answer the evolutionary riddle of why people are nice, and eventually gave away all his belongings and took his own life in a squatter's flat.

The Black Box of Biology

Download The Black Box of Biology PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674245253
Total Pages : 529 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Black Box of Biology by : Michel Morange

Download or read book The Black Box of Biology written by Michel Morange and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-09 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this masterful account, a historian of science surveys the molecular biology revolution, its origin and continuing impact. Since the 1930s, a molecular vision has been transforming biology. Michel Morange provides an incisive and overarching history of this transformation, from the early attempts to explain organisms by the structure of their chemical components, to the birth and consolidation of genetics, to the latest technologies and discoveries enabled by the new science of life. Morange revisits A History of Molecular Biology and offers new insights from the past twenty years into his analysis. The Black Box of Biology shows that what led to the incredible transformation of biology was not a simple accumulation of new results, but the molecularization of a large part of biology. In fact, Morange argues, the greatest biological achievements of the past few decades should still be understood within the molecular paradigm. What has happened is not the displacement of molecular biology by other techniques and avenues of research, but rather the fusion of molecular principles and concepts with those of other disciplines, including genetics, physics, structural chemistry, and computational biology. This has produced decisive changes, including the discoveries of regulatory RNAs, the development of massive scientific programs such as human genome sequencing, and the emergence of synthetic biology, systems biology, and epigenetics. Original, persuasive, and breathtaking in its scope, The Black Box of Biology sets a new standard for the history of the ongoing molecular revolution.

Genetic Analysis

Download Genetic Analysis PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 0521884187
Total Pages : 331 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (218 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Genetic Analysis by : Raphael Falk

Download or read book Genetic Analysis written by Raphael Falk and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-05-14 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a paradox lying at the heart of the study of heredity. To understand the ways in which features are passed on down from one generation to the next, we have to dig deeper and deeper into the ultimate nature of things - from organisms, to genes, to molecules. And yet as we do this, increasingly we find we are out of focus with our subjects. What has any of this to do with the living, breathing organisms with which we started? Organisms are living. Molecules are not. How do we relate one to the other? In Genetic Analysis, one of the most important empirical scientists in the field in the twentieth century attempts, through a study of history and drawing on his own vast experience as a practitioner, to face this paradox head-on. His book offers a deep and innovative understanding of our ways of thinking about heredity.

Using the Biological Literature

Download Using the Biological Literature PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : CRC Press
ISBN 13 : 1466558571
Total Pages : 414 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (665 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Using the Biological Literature by : Diane Schmidt

Download or read book Using the Biological Literature written by Diane Schmidt and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2014-04-14 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The biological sciences cover a broad array of literature types, from younger fields like molecular biology with its reliance on recent journal articles, genomic databases, and protocol manuals to classic fields such as taxonomy with its scattered literature found in monographs and journals from the past three centuries. Using the Biological Literature: A Practical Guide, Fourth Edition is an annotated guide to selected resources in the biological sciences, presenting a wide-ranging list of important sources. This completely revised edition contains numerous new resources and descriptions of all entries including textbooks. The guide emphasizes current materials in the English language and includes retrospective references for historical perspective and to provide access to the taxonomic literature. It covers both print and electronic resources including monographs, journals, databases, indexes and abstracting tools, websites, and associations—providing users with listings of authoritative informational resources of both classical and recently published works. With chapters devoted to each of the main fields in the basic biological sciences, this book offers a guide to the best and most up-to-date resources in biology. It is appropriate for anyone interested in searching the biological literature, from undergraduate students to faculty, researchers, and librarians. The guide includes a supplementary website dedicated to keeping URLs of electronic and web-based resources up to date, a popular feature continued from the third edition.

A Lab for All Seasons

Download A Lab for All Seasons PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300267223
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (2 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A Lab for All Seasons by : Sharon E. Kingsland

Download or read book A Lab for All Seasons written by Sharon E. Kingsland and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2023-07-25 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to chronicle how innovation in laboratory designs for botanical research energized the emergence of physiological plant ecology as a vibrant subdiscipline Laboratory innovation since the mid-twentieth century has powered advances in the study of plant adaptation, evolution, and ecosystem function. The phytotron, an integrated complex of controlled-environment greenhouse and laboratory spaces, was invented by Frits W. Went at the California Institute of Technology in the 1950s, setting off a worldwide laboratory movement, and transforming the plant sciences. Sharon Kingsland explores this revolution through a comparative study of work in the United States, France, Australia, Israel, the USSR, and Hungary--in the latter two, offering new interpretations of the response to Lysenkoism in Communist states. These advances in botanical research energized physiological plant ecology. Case studies explore the development of phytotron spin-offs such as mobile laboratories, rhizotrons, and ecotrons. Scientific problems include the significance of plant emissions of volatile organic compounds, symbiosis between plants and soil fungi, and the discovery of new pathways for photosynthesis as an adaptation to hot, dry climates. The advancement of knowledge through synthesis is a running theme: linking disciplines, combining laboratory and field research, and moving across ecological scales from leaf to ecosystem. The book also charts the history of modern scientific responses to the emerging crisis of food insecurity in the era of global warming.

A Contagious Cause

Download A Contagious Cause PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022662840X
Total Pages : 391 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (266 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A Contagious Cause by : Robin Wolfe Scheffler

Download or read book A Contagious Cause written by Robin Wolfe Scheffler and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-06-15 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is cancer a contagious disease? In the late nineteenth century this idea, and attending efforts to identify a cancer “germ,” inspired fear and ignited controversy. Yet speculation that cancer might be contagious also contained a kernel of hope that the strategies used against infectious diseases, especially vaccination, might be able to subdue this dread disease. Today, nearly one in six cancers are thought to have an infectious cause, but the path to that understanding was twisting and turbulent. ? A Contagious Cause is the first book to trace the century-long hunt for a human cancer virus in America, an effort whose scale exceeded that of the Human Genome Project. The government’s campaign merged the worlds of molecular biology, public health, and military planning in the name of translating laboratory discoveries into useful medical therapies. However, its expansion into biomedical research sparked fierce conflict. Many biologists dismissed the suggestion that research should be planned and the idea of curing cancer by a vaccine or any other means as unrealistic, if not dangerous. Although the American hunt was ultimately fruitless, this effort nonetheless profoundly shaped our understanding of life at its most fundamental levels. A Contagious Cause links laboratory and legislature as has rarely been done before, creating a new chapter in the histories of science and American politics.

Art and Science in Breeding

Download Art and Science in Breeding PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
ISBN 13 : 1442643951
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (426 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Art and Science in Breeding by : Margaret Elsinor Derry

Download or read book Art and Science in Breeding written by Margaret Elsinor Derry and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chickens are now the most scientifically engineered of livestock. How have the methods used by geneticists differed from those employed by domestic breeders over time? Art and Science in Breeding details the relationship between farm practices and agricultural genetics in poultry breeding from 1850 to 1960. Margaret E. Derry traces the history and organization of chicken breeding in North America, from craft approaches and breeding as an 'art,' to the conflicts that had emerged between traditional and scientific methods by the 1940s. Derry assesses links between the 'scientific' revolution of chicken farming and the development of corporate breeding as a modern, international industry. Using poultry as a case study for the wider narrative of agricultural genetics, Art and Science in Breeding adds considerable knowledge to a rapidly growing field of inquiry.

Handbook for the Historiography of Science

Download Handbook for the Historiography of Science PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3031275101
Total Pages : 628 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (312 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Handbook for the Historiography of Science by : Mauro L. Condé

Download or read book Handbook for the Historiography of Science written by Mauro L. Condé and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-11-01 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book aims to perform a critical and broad assessment of the historiography of science produced from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century. It presents its main authors, concepts, ideas, conceptions, and schools. It also analyzes the historical circumstances of the rise of the discipline history of science and the relations of the historiography of science with related areas. These chapters do not understand the historiography of science as a mere description or record of the history of science. Instead, they understand the historiography of science from the epistemological criteria and choices that guided the writing of the history of science in its different contexts. In other words, more than describing the record of the various possibilities of historiographical approaches to science, the chapters carry out an epistemological reflection to assess the bases, possibilities, scope, and limits of different historiographical conceptions, authors, and traditions that have established the writing of the history of science. This book can be conceived as a reference work not only for professional historians and philosophers but also for academics from different backgrounds who are initiating themselves in the universe of history and philosophy of science, be they scientists from different fields or young researchers from different backgrounds who want to start studying the history and philosophy of science.

The Living World

Download The Living World PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350153389
Total Pages : 221 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (51 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Living World by : Samantha Walton

Download or read book The Living World written by Samantha Walton and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harnessing new enthusiasm for Nan Shepherd's writing, The Living World asks how literature might help us reimagine humanity's place on earth in the midst of our ecological crisis. The first book to examine Shepherd's writing through an ecocritical lens, it reveals forgotten details about the scientific, political and philosophical climate of early twentieth century Scotland, and offers new insights into Shepherd's distinctive environmental thought. More than this, this book reveals how Shepherd's ways of relating to complex, interconnected ecologies predate many of the core themes and concerns of the multi-disciplinary environmental humanities, and may inform their future development. Broken down into chapters focusing on themes of place, ecology, environmentalism, Deep Time, vital matter and selfhood, The Living World offers the first integrated study of Shepherd's writing and legacy, making the work of this philosopher, feminist, amateur ecologist, geologist, and innovative modernist, accessible and relevant to a new community of readers.

Species, Science and Society

Download Species, Science and Society PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 100091268X
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (9 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Species, Science and Society by : Quentin Wheeler

Download or read book Species, Science and Society written by Quentin Wheeler and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-07-06 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: - presents an engaging and accessible examination of the role of systematic biology in species exploration and biodiversity conservation - clarifies misconceptions about systematic biology, reimagining it for the 21st Century - proposes an ambitious, planetary-scale project to inventory and make known every kind of plant, animal, and microbe on Earth - challenges the next and present generations of taxonomists to allow molecular data to assume it’s proper place alongside traditional data, to reembrace the fundamentally important mission of systematics - will be of great interest to those researching and working in systematics in botany and zoology, as well as professionals working in taxonomy and biodiversity conservation.

Interplay of Creativity and Giftedness in Science

Download Interplay of Creativity and Giftedness in Science PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 9463001638
Total Pages : 398 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (63 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Interplay of Creativity and Giftedness in Science by : Melissa K. Demetrikopoulos

Download or read book Interplay of Creativity and Giftedness in Science written by Melissa K. Demetrikopoulos and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-12-17 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores education for juvenile offenders in relation to Passages Academy, which is both similar to and representative of many school programs in juvenile correctional facilities. Examining the mission and population of this school contributes to an understanding of the ways in which the teachers think about and ultimately act with respect to their detained juveniles students, and particularly illustrates how the tension between punishment and rehabilitation is played out in school policies and design. By calling attention to the decisions that surround juvenile detention education, the extant research concentrates on three main areas: first, the social, political, and pedagogical forces that determine who enters the juvenile justice systems; second, how these court-involved youths are educated while they are in the system; and third, the practical problems and the social justice issues youths encountered when transitioning back to their community schools. “I Hope I Don’t See You Tomorrow is both heartwarming and heartbreaking: its vast empathy for the students that L. A. Gabay teaches is edifying, while its unsparing examination of the forces that push youth into detention is soul shearing. Gabay is at once Tocqueville and Kozol: he brilliantly guides us through the educational territory that is foreign to most of us, even as he paints a searing portrait of teachers who shape lesson plans for students who must learn under impossible conditions. Gabay’s haunting and eloquent missive from the front lines of pain and possibility couldn’t be more timely as the nation’s first black president seeks to lessen the stigma of nonviolent ex-offenders in our society. Gabay’s book confronts the criminal justice system at its institutional roots: in the economic misery and racial strife of schooling that compounds the suffering of poor youth as they are contained by a state that often only pays attention to them when they are (in) trouble. Gabay opens eyes and vexes minds with this stirring and sober account of what it means to teach those whom society has deemed utterly expendable.” – Michael Eric Dyson, author of The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America As a beneficiary of Lee Gabay and his colleague’s patience, discipline, and compassionate teaching at the school, this timely book beautifully decrypts the pedagogical framework within the juvenile justice system. As America comes to term with its zeal for incarceration, policymakers, educators, government officials, parents and advocates should take advantage of this carefully written book and use it as reflection and pause as we prepare our young court-involved students towards adulthood.” – Jim St. Germain, Advisory counsel on President Obama’s Taskforce on Police & Community Relations and Mayor Bloomberg’s Close to Home initiative

Intellectual Pursuits of Nicolas Rashevsky

Download Intellectual Pursuits of Nicolas Rashevsky PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Birkhäuser
ISBN 13 : 3319399225
Total Pages : 199 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (193 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Intellectual Pursuits of Nicolas Rashevsky by : Maya M. Shmailov

Download or read book Intellectual Pursuits of Nicolas Rashevsky written by Maya M. Shmailov and published by Birkhäuser. This book was released on 2016-08-29 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who was Nicolas Rashevsky? To answer that question, this book draws on Rashevsky’s unexplored personal archival papers and shares interviews with his family, students and friends, as well as discussions with biologists and mathematical biologists, to flesh out and complete the picture. “Most modern-day biologists have never heard of Rashevsky. Why?” In what constitutes the first detailed biography of theoretical physicist Nicolas Rashevsky (1899-1972), spanning key aspects of his long scientific career, the book captures Rashevsky’s ways of thinking about the place mathematical biology should have in biology and his personal struggle for the acceptance of his views. It brings to light the tension between mathematicians, theoretical physicists and biologists when it comes to the introduction of physico-mathematical tools into biology. Rashevsky’s successes and failures in his efforts to establish mathematical biology as a subfield of biology provide an important test case for understanding the role of theory (in particular mathematics) in understanding the natural world. With the biological sciences moving towards new vistas of inter- and multi-disciplinary collaborations and research programs, the book will appeal to a wide readership ranging from historians, sociologists, and ethnographers of American science and culture to students and general readers with an interest in the history of the life sciences, mathematical biology and the social construction of science.