Description
Book SynopsisOrganisms have disappeared from biology as basic, explanatory entities, replaced by genes and their products. This 2007 book is concerned with the rediscovery and redefinition of organisms as the irreducible dynamic systems from which particular types of order emerge, explaining the characteristics of biological forms and their transformations in evolution.
Trade Review"Anyone who has been puzzled by the sorts of views championed by the structuralists, ideal morphologists and rational empiricists should read Webster and Goodwin's Form and Transformation. You may not agree, but at least you will understand--and this is no small accomplishment." David L. Hull, Northwestern University
"This book makes an important contribution to the paradigm shift." Molecular Reproduction and Development
Table of ContentsPreface; Acknowledgements; Part I. The Problem of Form: 1. Introduction: forms and kinds; 2. The old dialectic: empirical classification and Darwinian theory; 3. The ontological status of Taxa: material practice; 4. The ontological status of Taxa: theoretical practice; 5. Rational systematics and morphogenetic theory: a new dialectic?; 6. Putting the organism together again; Part II. Fields and Forms: 7. Segments, symmetries, and epigenetic maps; 8. The unitary morphogenetic field; 9. A generative biology; References; Index.
