Epistemology of the Cell: A Systems Perspective on Biological Knowledge

The aim of the book is to examine the place of biological knowledge witin the framework of science as a whole and to address issues having to do with the specific nature of biology, how biology is studied, and how biological knowledge is translated into applications, in particular, with regard to medicine. The book opens with a general discussion of the historical development of human understanding of scientific knowledge, the scientific method, and the manner in which scientific knowledge is represented in mathematics.  The narrative then gets specific for biology b focusing on knowledge of the cell, the basic unit of life. The salient point is the analogy between a systems-based analysis of factory regulation and the regulation of the cell. There follows a discussion of translational science, currently a hot topic in medical circles.