Understanding Metaphors in the Life Sciences

Andrew S. Reynolds is Professor of Philosophy at Cape Breton University, Canada. He is the author of The Third Lens: Metaphor and the Creation of Modern Cell Biology (University of Chicago Press, 2018) and Peirce's Scientific Metaphysics: The Philosophy of Chance, Law and Evolution (Vanderbilt University Press, 2002). He has a PhD in the philosophy of science from the University of Western Ontario.

• 1. Metaphors and science; 2. Background metaphors: agents, machines, and information; 3. Genes and genomes: agents, codes, programs, blueprints, and books; 4. Proteins: machines, messengers, and team players; 5. Cells: factories, computers, and social organisms; 6. Evolution: natural selection, the tree of life, and selfish genes; 7. Ecology: the balance of nature, niches, ecosystem health, and gaia; 8. Biomedicine: genetic engineering, genome editing, and cell reprogramming.

'What a timely book this is! It is precisely because biology has made such striking advances in recent years that its stock of metaphors is due for a clinical check-up. Reynolds offers a reliable and perceptive diagnosis of the framing narratives of the life sciences, sympathetically examining their strengths and weaknesses. This book should be an essential accompaniment to any study course in the biological sciences.' Philip Ball, science writer and author of How to Grow a Human