Promises and Limits of Reductionism in the Biomedical Sciences

Abstract

Preface ContributorsAbout the Editors Introduction (D.L. Hull and M.H.V. Van Regenmortel) Emergent Properties of Biological Molecules and Cells (R. P. J. Williams) From Nineteenth Century Ideas on Reduction in Physiology to Non reductive Explanations in Twentieth Century Biochemistry (C. Debru) Pitfalls of Reductionism in Immunology (M. H. V. Van Regenmortel) Reductionism in Medicine: Social Aspects of Health (E.A. Lloyd) Who s Afraid of Reductionism?? I am!? (S. Shostak) Round Table Discussion 1 (Chair: A. Rosenberg) Reductionism in a Historical Science (A. Rosenberg) Varieties of Reductionism: Derivation and Gene Selection (D. L. Hull) The Gene: Between Holism and Reductionism (M. Morange) Genes versus Molecules: How to, and How Not To, Be a Reductionist (S. Sarak) Limits on Reproduction: A Reductionist Research Strategy in Evolutionary Biology (J. Griesemer) Evolutionary Psychology: A Case Study in the Poverty of Genetic Determinism (J. Dupre) Round Table Discussion 2 (Chair: M.H.V. Van Regenmortel) The Ethical Imperative of Holism in Medicine (A. Tauber) Levels of Explanation in Human Behaviour: the Poverty of Evolutionary Psychology (S. P. R. Rose) Reductionism and Social Policy (D. Nelkin) Reductionism, Complexity and Molecular Medicine: Genetic Chips and the Globalization of the Genome (K. Schaffner) Round Table Discussion 3 (Chair: K.F. Schaffner) Bibliography Index