Acclaimed theorist and social scientist Donna Jeanne Haraway uses the work of pioneering developmental biologists Ross G. Harrison, Joseph Needham, and Paul Weiss as a springboard for a discussion about a shift in developmental biology from a vitalism-mechanism framework to organicism. The book deftly interweaves Thomas Kuhn's concept of paradigm change into this wide-ranging analysis, emphasizing the role of model, analogy, and metaphor in the paradigm and arguing that any truly useful theoretical system in biology must have a central metaphor.

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Introduction

1.Paradigm and Metaphor

2.The Elements of Organicism

3.Ross G.Harrison

 A Pioneer in the Construction of an Organismic Paradigm

 The Silliman Lectures

4.Joseph Needham

　A Great Amphibian

　Mature Perspectives

5.Paul Weiss

　From Fields to Molecular Ecology

　The Living System

6.Conclusion: Of Paradigms and Scientists

References

Index