Science and the Quest for Meaning

Acknowledgments

ix Acknowledgments This book joins the two sides of the divide between science and the humanities. I have arrived at my own perspective from two vocations. As a research physician, I spent twenty years of my career engaged in investigations of the biochemistry of the inflammatory response. That work spanned the fields of free-radical chemistry, protein chemistry, cell biology , and molecular biology. With some overlap, I devoted another twenty years to the history and philosophy of nineteenth- and twentieth-century biology, with particular studies devoted to the development of immunology ’s basic theories, the place of reductionism in biomedicine, and most recently, the intersection of science and moral philosophy. Science and the Quest for Meaning in many ways completes the project that began with my transition from a laboratory scientist to a philosopher and historian of science. Building a bridge between these two domains has been a richly rewarded intellectual endeavor, one assisted by many students, colleagues, and friends. To acknowledge all those who have aided me simply resides beyond my sorry memory, but Bob Cohen, Hilary Putnam, and John Stachel deserve special acknowledgment for their support and guidance. I have developed my interpretation of science as an intellectual and cultural activity from a privileged position. Since 1993, I have had the good fortune of surveying science studies as Director of Boston University’s Center for Philosophy and History of Science. The Center, $ created in 1960, is the oldest and one of the most distinguished forums for scholarly discussions of the history, philosophy, and sociology of science , mathematics, and logic. This book, in large part, is a distillation of my intellectual excitement stimulated by the erudition and creative interpretative insights of our visiting scholars and resident fellows. The Center’s Boston Colloquium for Philosophy of Science has hosted over 800 lectures since 1993! In the rich dialogue that these presentations have stimulated, I have witnessed the growth and evolution of those disciplines devoted to the study of science. This book is not a précis or overview of science studies, but rather a report of my own views, which may fairly be judged as idiosyncratic when measured against the vast majority of studies published in this field. Indeed, I freely admit that my humanistic orientation is at odds with the temper of the times. All the more reason to offer this analysis! More immediately, this book crystallized around two of my lectures and the discussions surrounding them. The first, “Science and the Humanities,” was delivered at the European Regional Conference of the Board of Governors of Tel Aviv University (Berlin, April 1, 2005). That paper was expanded into a second presentation, “Science and Reason, Reason and Faith: A Kantian Perspective,” for the Herbert H. Reynolds Lectureship at Baylor University (January 31, 2006) and later published (Tauber 2007). Appropriate to its genesis, this book has been nurtured by Carey Newman and the staff of Baylor University Press, and I thank them for their professionalism and effective efforts on behalf of this project. I have also profited from my graduate and undergraduate seminars based on this text at Boston University (2005) and Tel Aviv University (2006), where my students helped me frame and articulate the issues discussed in the book. I am particularly appreciative to the skeptics who challenged my thesis and provoked me to more clearly argue its case. I will not enumerate the many colleagues and friends with whom I have profitably explored the specific issues presented in this book, but I extend a special thanks to those who read this manuscript at various stages of its production: Chalmers Clark, Menachem Fisch, Scott Gilbert, Charles Griswold, Walter Hopp, Adi Ophir, Jonathan Price, Peter Schwartz, Steve Scully, and John Stachel. I must single out Roger Smith, who, for many years, has prodded me to rethink my positions and to probe more deeply into the issues described here and in related publications. Those generous efforts are much appreciated. Finally, I thank my wife, Paula x Science and the Quest for Meaning Acknowledgments xi Fredriksen, who has always been my most consistent and effective interlocutor . This study is dedicated to my friend Hal Churchill, in the hopes he will read it. Hal personifies the caring physician, a man devoted to science and its humane application, so I regard the message conveyed here a testament to his own commitments. Portions of this book have been culled from previously published material where...