Memoirs of a Scientist-HistorianA Skeptical Biochemist. Joseph S. FrutonEighty years. Joseph S. Fruton

Abstract

Taking his inspiration from Robert Boyle (The Sceptical Chymist [1661]) and Joseph Needham (The Sceptical Biologist [1929]), Joseph Fruton, in A Skeptical Biochemist, engages in a critical conversation with scientists, philosophers, sociologists, and historians of the biochemical sciences since 1800. He speaks as one who, for over half a century, actively participated in the burgeoning field of protein chemistry and is also a widely read scholar of the history and philosophy of the sciences. In four major chapters Fruton deals with the methodology, the history and philosophy, the historiography, and the language of the biochemical sciences. He uses the term biochemical sciences not in a strictly disciplinary sense, but to describe all those efforts that are situated at the intersection of chemistry and biology. In his perceptive discussion of the scientific method as it applies to the biochemical sciences (Ch. 2), Fruton defends Baconian inductivism by taking issue with Claude Bernard, Justus von Liebig, and Popperian positivism. He stresses the importance of experimentation, observation, and craftsmanship in practice and warns against the search for simplicity through numerical and geometrical representations. In the third and most voluminous chapter of the book, Fruton sketches the interplay of chemical and biological sciences since 1800, showing mastery over a wide range of topics. His analysis ranges from earlier studies on respiration, metabolic conversion of foodstuffs, vision, muscular contraction, and microbial fermentation to later developments in cytology, embryology, microbiology, and, after 1950, molecular biology and evolutionary theory. Focusing on philosophical controversies such as the debate between proponents of mechanism and vitalism and the ongoing debate about reductionism and the autonomy of biology that has accompanied chemical descriptions of the phenomena of life, Fruton emphasizes that biological practice and theorizing have always been limited by the available