کد مقاله کد نشریه سال انتشار مقاله انگلیسی نسخه تمام متن
1162062 1490543 2009 11 صفحه PDF دانلود رایگان
عنوان انگلیسی مقاله ISI
Molecular evolution: concepts and the origin of disciplines
موضوعات مرتبط
علوم زیستی و بیوفناوری علوم کشاورزی و بیولوژیک علوم کشاورزی و بیولوژیک (عمومی)
پیش نمایش صفحه اول مقاله
Molecular evolution: concepts and the origin of disciplines
چکیده انگلیسی

This paper focuses on the consolidation of Molecular Evolution, a field originating in the 1960s at the interface of molecular biology, biochemistry, evolutionary biology, biophysics and studies on the origin of life and exobiology. The claim is made that Molecular Evolution became a discipline by integrating different sorts of scientific traditions: experimental, theoretical and comparative. The author critically incorporates Timothy Lenoir’s treatment of disciplines (1997), as well as ideas developed by Stephen Toulmin (1962) on the same subject. On their account disciplines are spaces where the social and epistemic dimensions of science are deeply and complexly interwoven. However, a more detailed account of discipline formation and the dynamics of an emerging disciplinary field is lacking in their analysis. The present essay suggests focusing on the role of scientific concepts in the double configuration of disciplines: the social/political and the epistemic order. In the case of Molecular Evolution the concepts of molecular clock and informational molecules played a central role, both in differentiating molecular from classical evolutionists, and in promoting communication between the different sorts of traditions integrated in Molecular Evolution. The paper finishes with a reflection on the historicity of disciplines, and the historicity of our concepts of disciplines.

ناشر
Database: Elsevier - ScienceDirect (ساینس دایرکت)
Journal: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences - Volume 40, Issue 1, March 2009, Pages 43–53
نویسندگان
,