Crystals, Fabrics, and Fields: Metaphors That Shape Embryos

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 vitalismmechanism framework to organicism. The book deftly interweaves Thomas Kuhns concept of paradigm change into this wideranging 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.