Discovering cell mechanisms : the creation of modern cell biology
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Discovering cell mechanisms : the creation of modern cell biology
(Cambridge studies in philosophy and biology)
Cambridge University Press, 2006
- : hardback
Available at 3 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 281-311) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Between 1940 and 1970 pioneers in the new field of cell biology discovered the operative parts of cells and their contributions to cell life. They offered mechanistic accounts that explained cellular phenomena by identifying the relevant parts of cells, the biochemical operations they performed, and the way in which these parts and operations were organised to accomplish important functions. Cell biology was a revolutionary science but in this book it also provides fuel for yet another revolution, one that focuses on the very conception of science itself. Laws have traditionally been regarded as the primary vehicle of explanation, but in the emerging philosophy of science it is mechanisms that do the explanatory work. Bechtel emphasises how mechanisms were discovered, focusing especially on the way in which new instruments made these inquiries possible. He also describes how new journals and societies provided institutional structure to this new enterprise.
Table of Contents
- Part I. Introduction: Cell Mechanisms and Cell Biology: 1. A different kind of science
- 2. The organization of science into disciplines
- 3. The new discipline of cell biology
- Part II. Explaining Cellular Phenomena through Mechanisms: 4. Historical conceptions of mechanism
- 5. Twentieth century conceptions of mechanism
- 6. Current conceptions of mechanisms
- 7. Representing and reasoning about mechanisms
- 8. Levels of organization and reduction
- 9. Organization: from Cartesian to biological mechanisms
- 10. Discovering and testing models of mechanisms
- 11. Conclusions
- Part III. The Locus of Cell Mechanisms: Terra Incognita Between Cytology and Biochemistry: 12. Cytological contributions to discovering cell mechanisms up to 1940
- 13. Biochemical contributions to discovering cell mechanisms up to 1940
- 14. The need to enter the Terra Incognita between cytology and biochemistry
- Part IV. Creating New Instruments and Research Techniques to Study Cell Mechanisms: 15. The epistemology of evidence: judging artifacts
- 16. The ultracentrifuge and cell fractionation
- 17. The electron microscope and electron microscopy
- 18. A case study of an artifact charge
- 19. Equipped with new instruments and techniques to enter Terra Incognita
- Part V. Entering the Terra Incognita Between Biochemistry and Cytology: 20. First steps towards cell biology at the Rockefeller Institute: Claude's introduction of cell fractionation
- 21. Robert Bensley: an alternative approach to fractionalism
- 22. Competing interpretations of fractions from normal cells
- 23. Linking Claude's microsomes to protein synthesis
- 24. Adding a biochemical perspective to the Rockefeller Laboratory
- 25. Adding electron microscopy as a tool
- 26. The state of cell studies at the end of the 1940's
- Part VI. New Knowledge: the Mechanisms of the Cytoplasm: 27. The mitochondrion
- 28. Microsomes, the endoplasmic reticulum, and ribosomes
- 29. Two additional organelles
- 30. Giving cell biology an institutional identity.
by "Nielsen BookData"