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Original Title:	The Dialectical Biologist
ISBN:	067420283X (ISBN13: 9780674202832)
Edition Language:	English

The Dialectical Biologist

Richard Levins

Paperback | Pages: 336 pages

Rating: 4.34 | 82 Users | 11 Reviews

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Title	:	The Dialectical Biologist
Author	:	Richard Levins
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Special Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 336 pages
Published	:	March 1st 2006 by Harvard University Press (first published July 1st 1985)
Categories	:	Science. Biology. Philosophy. Nonfiction. Evolution

Description In Pursuance Of Books The Dialectical Biologist

Scientists act within a social context and from a philosophical perspective that is inherently political. Whether they realize it or not, scientists always choose sides. The Dialectical Biologist explores this political nature of scientific inquiry, advancing its argument within the framework of Marxist dialectic. These essays stress the concepts of continual change and codetermination between organism and environment, part and whole, structure and process, science and politics. Throughout, this book questions our accepted definitions and biases, showing the self-reflective nature of scientific activity within society.

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Ratings: 4.34 From 82 Users | 11 Reviews

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An intellectual thunderbolt

The authors contrast their dialectical approach to science with "Cartesian reductionism." Briefly, the latter isolates parts from wholes and wholes from each other; it regards wholes as just additive parts and treats phenomena statically; and, as a result, it gives a false or misleading picture of reality (the "reductivist myth of simplicity"). The former (dialectical approach) sees parts as parts of wholes, and looks at mutual interactions between parts and wholes and wholes with each other.

A lot of science books take the process of science itself for granted and don't really examine the authors' concept of how science works. This is not one of those books. The authors demonstrate how every scientific worldview is subjective and political, show the flaws with the predominant, reductionist-capitalist system, and provide the basis of an alternative, dialectical system and how it might be used to approach evolutionary questions. While the authors make clear that they approached this

I heard Dick Levins speak in Amherst last month and he was incredibly articulate. So I read this book. Some of the essays are denser than others, but overall it provides a clear vision of how science is practiced and how it should be practiced. The essay on Latino community health is still relevant today 30 years later!

i read this book alongside richard dawkins' 'the blind watchmaker' last year in a class i was taking on the philosophy of biology, and i really think that anyone who's interested in the issues surrounding evolutionary theory, even (and especially) at the level of popular science, should go out and pick up a copy of this book immediately. as a non-biologist it always seems like the primary battles are between the scientists who accept evolutionary theory and the religious fundementalists who



This book was published a year before I was born. Since then, I've jumped through most of the hoops society has laid out for budding scientists, and at some point in the next 2 years I should be allowed to call myself a "Doctor of Philosophy" or something like that ("burger flipper"?). It has come obvious to me that there's a ton of problems in scientific research, in the scientific community, and in the way research is conducted. It's also very funny to see that a lot of these problems have