Life Scientists

Their Convictions, Their Activities, and Their Values


I. Foundations

What is science?

1. The features of science 2. By using eyes, hands, and brains 3. Seeing with different eyes

What comes before science

4. In search of order 5. Life deciphered 6. The species level 7. The whole and its parts 8. A controversy in embryology 9. Functionality vs causality 10. The history of functionality 11. The necessity of functionality

What comes with science

12. Historical roots 13. What is science and what is not science? 14. Limitation and demarcation 15. A region and its many maps 16. Methodological reduction 17. Science for whom?

II. Methodology

Routes to take

18. Searching and finding 19. A matter of logic? 20. The power of ideas 21. The technique of observation

Research programs

22. Inspiration and perspiration 23. The phase of testing and finding 24. Falisification and its problems 25. The empirical circle closed

The tools of science

26. From concept to theory 27. Between facts and rules 28. A special group of statements 29. The ideal structure of a theory?
Doing justice to life
30. A model of explanation 31. There are many answers to the question "Why?" 32. How scientific are the life sciences? 33. Cognitive ethology

Where the boundaries appear

34. From biology to physics? 35. On the frontiers of the life sciences 36. A world with different entries 37. Scientific pluralism 38. Ape or Adam?

III. Ethics

The context of morality

39. An ethical evaluation of behavior 40. Rationality vs morality? 41. The biology of morality 42. Ethics and sociobiology 43. Ethics and determinism

Nothing but the truth?

44. Academic freedom 45. Disinterestedness 46. Values from without? 47. The quest for truth

A social enterprise

48. The contest of ideas 49. The scientific community 50. Experimental subjects 51. Experimental animals

What is science good for?

52. Science in its ivory tower? 53. External interests 54. Science and responsibility

Further Reading Index


Life scientists appear to be the wizards of this new era. They have ventured to tackle issues ranging from the origin of life to the origins of humankind; from medical and genetic knowledge to questions about how to control life and death. Spectacular are the achievements they have made. Who are these scientists? How do they operate? What do they believe? What do they value? Read the answers yourself.