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The life organic : the Theoretical Biology Club and the roots of epigenetics / Erik L. Peterson.

by Peterson, Erik L.

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Pittsburgh, Pa. : University of Pittsburgh Press, [2016]

Theoretical Biology Club.

Biology -- Philosophy -- History.

Epigenetics -- History.

9780822944669 (alk. paper, hardback) :

0822944669 (alk. paper)

xvi, 334 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

The first generation of organicists -- Needham's revival of mechanism -- Socrates and the principia biolog? -- The tipping point -- Waddington and the organizer -- The original Theoretical Biology Club -- Large plans versus the ultimate littleness of things -- As many opinions as there are men -- "Off in all directions like an expanding universe" -- Mechanism reduced to molecules -- The Lysenko morality tale and the epigenetic landscape -- Ernst Mayr, neo-Darwinism, and beanbag genetics -- History of science is written by the laureates -- The 1960s reincarnation of the debate -- The conventional wisdom of the dominant group, or cowdung -- Conclusion : a third way after Waddington? -- Epilogue : is modern epigenetics organic?

This book tells the forgotten story of the pursuit of a Third Way in biology, known by many names, including "the organic philosophy"--Including the scientists who defined and refined it and its persistence into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It considers the creation of the subfield of epigenetics, a product of Third Way thinking, rooted among a group of scholars known as the Theoretical Biology Club. And it raises significant questions about how we should model the development of the discipline of biology. -- Provided by publisher.

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