Oren Harman is the chair of the Graduate Program in Science, Technology, and Society at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel, the author of The Man Who Invented the Chromosome and The Price of Altruism, and coeditor of Rebels, Mavericks, and Heretics in Biology. He lives in Tel Aviv, Israel. Michael R. Dietrich is professor of history and philosophy of science at the University of Pittsburgh. He is coeditor of Rebels, Mavericks, and Heretics in Biology.
"Dreamers, Visionaries and Revolutionaries is the third book Harman
and Dietrich have edited on figures in the life sciences. Each of
the 18 chapters is, in effect, an intellectual biography of someone
who had a profound effect on the biological sciences. They explain
their accomplishments, why they mattered, and to some extent sketch
a narrative about what it was about them, the communities they
moved in, or surrounding social or intellectual climate which
explains their ideas and their effect...a pleasure to
read..."--Adrian Currie "History and Philosophy of the Life
Sciences"
"Dreamers, Visionaries, and Revolutionaries in the Life joins
Rebels, Mavericks, and Heretics in Biology (Yale, 2008) and
Outsider Scientists: Routes to Innovation in Biology (Chicago,
2013) in presenting looks at individual scientists who are
non-standard in illuminating ways. Harmon and Dietrich have enticed
their contributors to think about the role of individual scientists
and how they helped shape science in society. They then pull
together the individual biographies with valuable cross-cutting
interpretive introductions. Joan Roughgarden's epilogue captures
the book's message beautifully. To those who feel they don't quite
fit: "If you're a scientist dreamer, let it happen; don't fight it.
Really, you have no choice. It's what you are. In the end, you
might be correct, after all. And remember, be a disciplined
dreamer. The scientist dreamer must aim to tell a true story, not a
fantasy." To the rest of us: "If you're not a scientific dreamer
yourself, but know someone who is, be kind to them." We should be
kind because the dreamers stimulate us all ro think and be better
than we otherwise would. The brilliant Lynn Margulis might have
infuriated almost everybody, as the editors note, but she also
provoked us in the best possible ways and changed our thinking
about life."
--Jane Maienschein, Arizona State University
"Sciences stay lively only thanks to regular injections of big,
bold thinking and doing. Dreamers, Visionaries, and Revolutionaries
in the Life Sciences tells the stories of some of biology's
greatest boundary-pushers, from Lamarck (who gave biology its name)
to Lovelock and beyond. Prepare to be instructed, inspired, amazed,
and--occasionally--appalled."--Gregory Radick, University of
Leeds
"This spirited collection not only provides intriguing biographies
of life scientists whose histories have often been overlooked, but
also forces us to revisit our usual narratives of how biological
change is generated to consider the role of true novelty,
especially in the hands and minds of quirky, eccentric, and
oftentimes plain ornery characters in the right places at opportune
times. Scientific advances come not only from experiments and
theories but from creative and even outlandish dreams, and this
volume brings together some of these radical dreamers and their
stories to generate as many new questions as are answered, much as
these scientists did in their own times."
--Rachel A. Ankeny, University of Adelaide, Australia
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