Walter W. Powell, Kelley Packalen, and Kjersten Whittington
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691148670
- eISBN:
- 9781400845552
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691148670.003.0014
- Subject:
- Sociology, Economic Sociology
This chapter examines eleven regions in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s that were all rich in resources—ideas, money, and skills—which might have led to the formation of life sciences ...
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This chapter examines eleven regions in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s that were all rich in resources—ideas, money, and skills—which might have led to the formation of life sciences clusters. Yet only three of the regions—the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, and San Diego—developed into robust industrial districts for biotechnology. Most research on the emergence of high-tech cluster samples on successful cases and traces backward to find a developmental pattern. In contrast, rather than read in reverse from a positive outcome, the chapter builds networks forward from their early origins, revealing three crucial factors: organizational diversity, anchor tenant organizations that protect the norms of a community and provide relational glue across multiple affiliations, and a sequence of network formation that starts with local connections and subsequently expands to global linkages.Less
This chapter examines eleven regions in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s that were all rich in resources—ideas, money, and skills—which might have led to the formation of life sciences clusters. Yet only three of the regions—the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, and San Diego—developed into robust industrial districts for biotechnology. Most research on the emergence of high-tech cluster samples on successful cases and traces backward to find a developmental pattern. In contrast, rather than read in reverse from a positive outcome, the chapter builds networks forward from their early origins, revealing three crucial factors: organizational diversity, anchor tenant organizations that protect the norms of a community and provide relational glue across multiple affiliations, and a sequence of network formation that starts with local connections and subsequently expands to global linkages.
Walter W. Powell and Jason Owen-Smith
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691148670
- eISBN:
- 9781400845552
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691148670.003.0015
- Subject:
- Sociology, Economic Sociology
This chapter follows the trajectory of the life sciences into the present day, focusing on the larger question of industry or field evolution. In a field characterized by “gales of creative ...
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This chapter follows the trajectory of the life sciences into the present day, focusing on the larger question of industry or field evolution. In a field characterized by “gales of creative destruction,” the chapter considers how some types of organizations have managed to retain a position of centrality even as others exit and many newcomers arrive. It analyzes the emergence of a core group of organizations, diverse in form and function, which they label an “open elite.” The animating question is why this group of organizations, which constituted a structural backbone of the field, did not become ossified gatekeepers but remained active in expansive exploration. The answer is found in their multiconnectivity—the multiple, independent pathways that link research-focused organizations in a wide array of different activities.Less
This chapter follows the trajectory of the life sciences into the present day, focusing on the larger question of industry or field evolution. In a field characterized by “gales of creative destruction,” the chapter considers how some types of organizations have managed to retain a position of centrality even as others exit and many newcomers arrive. It analyzes the emergence of a core group of organizations, diverse in form and function, which they label an “open elite.” The animating question is why this group of organizations, which constituted a structural backbone of the field, did not become ossified gatekeepers but remained active in expansive exploration. The answer is found in their multiconnectivity—the multiple, independent pathways that link research-focused organizations in a wide array of different activities.
Stefan Helmreich
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691164809
- eISBN:
- 9781400873869
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691164809.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
What is life? What is water? What is sound? This book investigates how contemporary scientists—biologists, oceanographers, and audio engineers—are redefining these crucial concepts. Life, water, and ...
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What is life? What is water? What is sound? This book investigates how contemporary scientists—biologists, oceanographers, and audio engineers—are redefining these crucial concepts. Life, water, and sound are phenomena at once empirical and abstract, material and formal, scientific and social. In the age of synthetic biology, rising sea levels, and new technologies of listening, these phenomena stretch toward their conceptual snapping points, breaching the boundaries between the natural, cultural, and virtual. Through examinations of the computational life sciences, marine biology, astrobiology, acoustics, and more, the book follows scientists to the limits of these categories. Along the way, it offers critical accounts of such other-than-human entities as digital life forms, microbes, coral reefs, whales, seawater, extraterrestrials, tsunamis, seashells, and bionic cochlea. It develops a new notion of “sounding”—as investigating, fathoming, listening—to describe the form of inquiry appropriate for tracking meanings and practices of the biological, aquatic, and sonic in a time of global change and climate crisis. The book shows that life, water, and sound no longer mean what they once did, and that what count as their essential natures are under dynamic revision.Less
What is life? What is water? What is sound? This book investigates how contemporary scientists—biologists, oceanographers, and audio engineers—are redefining these crucial concepts. Life, water, and sound are phenomena at once empirical and abstract, material and formal, scientific and social. In the age of synthetic biology, rising sea levels, and new technologies of listening, these phenomena stretch toward their conceptual snapping points, breaching the boundaries between the natural, cultural, and virtual. Through examinations of the computational life sciences, marine biology, astrobiology, acoustics, and more, the book follows scientists to the limits of these categories. Along the way, it offers critical accounts of such other-than-human entities as digital life forms, microbes, coral reefs, whales, seawater, extraterrestrials, tsunamis, seashells, and bionic cochlea. It develops a new notion of “sounding”—as investigating, fathoming, listening—to describe the form of inquiry appropriate for tracking meanings and practices of the biological, aquatic, and sonic in a time of global change and climate crisis. The book shows that life, water, and sound no longer mean what they once did, and that what count as their essential natures are under dynamic revision.
Lee Cronk and Beth L. Leech
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691154954
- eISBN:
- 9781400845484
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691154954.003.0008
- Subject:
- Sociology, Comparative and Historical Sociology
This chapter summarizes the book's findings regarding cooperation, coordination, and collective action as well as adaptation and the role that organizations play in fostering cooperation. It first ...
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This chapter summarizes the book's findings regarding cooperation, coordination, and collective action as well as adaptation and the role that organizations play in fostering cooperation. It first considers four vignettes, each highlighting a contrast between a situation in which cooperation did occur and one in which it did not: water as a common-pool resource, grassroots justice in Tanzania, slave rebellions, and coordinated and uncoordinated air traffic. It then offers some observations regarding the relationship between the social and life sciences, with particular emphasis on consilience, emergence, and the scientific division of labor. The chapter explains how consilience is made possible by emergence and cites the study of cooperation as an excellent example of how the division of labor among the sciences can lead to a wide range of complementary insights regarding specific social phenomena.Less
This chapter summarizes the book's findings regarding cooperation, coordination, and collective action as well as adaptation and the role that organizations play in fostering cooperation. It first considers four vignettes, each highlighting a contrast between a situation in which cooperation did occur and one in which it did not: water as a common-pool resource, grassroots justice in Tanzania, slave rebellions, and coordinated and uncoordinated air traffic. It then offers some observations regarding the relationship between the social and life sciences, with particular emphasis on consilience, emergence, and the scientific division of labor. The chapter explains how consilience is made possible by emergence and cites the study of cooperation as an excellent example of how the division of labor among the sciences can lead to a wide range of complementary insights regarding specific social phenomena.
Jon McGinnis
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195331479
- eISBN:
- 9780199868032
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195331479.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
This chapter first considers where Avicenna envisions medicine within his general classification of the sciences. It next presents the general principles of the humoral medicine that Avicenna adopts, ...
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This chapter first considers where Avicenna envisions medicine within his general classification of the sciences. It next presents the general principles of the humoral medicine that Avicenna adopts, and then discusses Avicenna’s views about health and the causes of disease or malady more generally. It concludes by considering a concrete issue of a medical-philosophical nature treated in Avicenna’s writings, namely, a problem associated with embryonic development and specifically whether embryonic development occurs gradually, as observation seems to suggest, or in stages, as theory seems to dictate. In the end, the chapter hopes to show how Avicenna successfully wed the best medicine of his time with his own philosophical system.Less
This chapter first considers where Avicenna envisions medicine within his general classification of the sciences. It next presents the general principles of the humoral medicine that Avicenna adopts, and then discusses Avicenna’s views about health and the causes of disease or malady more generally. It concludes by considering a concrete issue of a medical-philosophical nature treated in Avicenna’s writings, namely, a problem associated with embryonic development and specifically whether embryonic development occurs gradually, as observation seems to suggest, or in stages, as theory seems to dictate. In the end, the chapter hopes to show how Avicenna successfully wed the best medicine of his time with his own philosophical system.
Erik J. Hammerstrom
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231172769
- eISBN:
- 9780231541107
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231172769.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
Erik Hammerstrom’s chapter examines the participation of Buddhist intellectuals in the early 1920s “Science and Philosophy of Life” debates; he shows how Buddhist intellectuals adopted and promoted ...
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Erik Hammerstrom’s chapter examines the participation of Buddhist intellectuals in the early 1920s “Science and Philosophy of Life” debates; he shows how Buddhist intellectuals adopted and promoted modern scientific taxonomies of knowledge and scientific empiricism in ways informed by their Buddhist thinking that subsequently tempered, complicated, expanded, and deepened the modern Chinese discourse on science even as they advanced it.Less
Erik Hammerstrom’s chapter examines the participation of Buddhist intellectuals in the early 1920s “Science and Philosophy of Life” debates; he shows how Buddhist intellectuals adopted and promoted modern scientific taxonomies of knowledge and scientific empiricism in ways informed by their Buddhist thinking that subsequently tempered, complicated, expanded, and deepened the modern Chinese discourse on science even as they advanced it.
Justin E. H. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691141787
- eISBN:
- 9781400838721
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691141787.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Though it did not yet exist as a discrete field of scientific inquiry, biology was at the heart of many of the most important debates in seventeenth-century philosophy. Nowhere is this more apparent ...
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Though it did not yet exist as a discrete field of scientific inquiry, biology was at the heart of many of the most important debates in seventeenth-century philosophy. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the work of G. W. Leibniz. This book offers the first in-depth examination of Leibniz's deep and complex engagement with the empirical life sciences of his day, in areas as diverse as medicine, physiology, taxonomy, generation theory, and paleontology. The book shows how these wide-ranging pursuits were not only central to Leibniz's philosophical interests, but often provided the insights that led to some of his best-known philosophical doctrines. Presenting the clearest picture yet of the scope of Leibniz's theoretical interest in the life sciences, the book takes seriously the philosopher's own repeated claims that the world must be understood in fundamentally biological terms. Here it reveals a thinker who was immersed in the sciences of life, and looked to the living world for answers to vexing metaphysical problems. The book casts Leibniz's philosophy in an entirely new light, demonstrating how it radically departed from the prevailing models of mechanical philosophy and had an enduring influence on the history and development of the life sciences. Along the way, the book provides a fascinating glimpse into early modern debates about the nature and origins of organic life, and into how philosophers such as Leibniz engaged with the scientific dilemmas of their era.Less
Though it did not yet exist as a discrete field of scientific inquiry, biology was at the heart of many of the most important debates in seventeenth-century philosophy. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the work of G. W. Leibniz. This book offers the first in-depth examination of Leibniz's deep and complex engagement with the empirical life sciences of his day, in areas as diverse as medicine, physiology, taxonomy, generation theory, and paleontology. The book shows how these wide-ranging pursuits were not only central to Leibniz's philosophical interests, but often provided the insights that led to some of his best-known philosophical doctrines. Presenting the clearest picture yet of the scope of Leibniz's theoretical interest in the life sciences, the book takes seriously the philosopher's own repeated claims that the world must be understood in fundamentally biological terms. Here it reveals a thinker who was immersed in the sciences of life, and looked to the living world for answers to vexing metaphysical problems. The book casts Leibniz's philosophy in an entirely new light, demonstrating how it radically departed from the prevailing models of mechanical philosophy and had an enduring influence on the history and development of the life sciences. Along the way, the book provides a fascinating glimpse into early modern debates about the nature and origins of organic life, and into how philosophers such as Leibniz engaged with the scientific dilemmas of their era.
Juan Manuel Garrido
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823239351
- eISBN:
- 9780823239399
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823239351.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
The unprecedented proliferation of discourses and techniques concerning the living being has left philosophy in a stupefying situation. We no longer know what phenomenon deserves to be called “life,” ...
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The unprecedented proliferation of discourses and techniques concerning the living being has left philosophy in a stupefying situation. We no longer know what phenomenon deserves to be called “life,” and we no longer know how to ask the question “what is life?” The traditional way of understanding life as self-appropriating and self-organizing process of not ceasing to be, of taking care of one's own hunger, is challenged. This challenge entails questioning fundamental concepts of metaphysical thinking, namely, time, finality, and above all being and existing. In this study, the author proposes some basics elements for the question concerning life through readings of Aristotle, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida; through the discussion of scientific breakthroughs in thermodynamics and evolutionary and developmental biology; and through the re-examination of the notion of hunger in both its metaphysical and its political implications.Less
The unprecedented proliferation of discourses and techniques concerning the living being has left philosophy in a stupefying situation. We no longer know what phenomenon deserves to be called “life,” and we no longer know how to ask the question “what is life?” The traditional way of understanding life as self-appropriating and self-organizing process of not ceasing to be, of taking care of one's own hunger, is challenged. This challenge entails questioning fundamental concepts of metaphysical thinking, namely, time, finality, and above all being and existing. In this study, the author proposes some basics elements for the question concerning life through readings of Aristotle, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida; through the discussion of scientific breakthroughs in thermodynamics and evolutionary and developmental biology; and through the re-examination of the notion of hunger in both its metaphysical and its political implications.
Erik J. Hammerstrom
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231170345
- eISBN:
- 9780231539586
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231170345.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
The book argues that the most important period for Chinese Buddhists engagement with modern science occurred in the ten years between 1923 and 1932. This chapter lays out the historical context for ...
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The book argues that the most important period for Chinese Buddhists engagement with modern science occurred in the ten years between 1923 and 1932. This chapter lays out the historical context for that period. It begins with a general outline of Chinese history from the mid nineteenth century to 1920, culminating in an explanation of the historical significance of the year 1923. The central third of the chapter describe the spread of modern science in China, particularly the professionalization institutionalization of the various sciences, which were generally complete by the mid 1930s. The chapter closes with a review of the history Chinese Buddhist during the entire period, underscoring the manner in which social changes served to compel Buddhists to engage with science.Less
The book argues that the most important period for Chinese Buddhists engagement with modern science occurred in the ten years between 1923 and 1932. This chapter lays out the historical context for that period. It begins with a general outline of Chinese history from the mid nineteenth century to 1920, culminating in an explanation of the historical significance of the year 1923. The central third of the chapter describe the spread of modern science in China, particularly the professionalization institutionalization of the various sciences, which were generally complete by the mid 1930s. The chapter closes with a review of the history Chinese Buddhist during the entire period, underscoring the manner in which social changes served to compel Buddhists to engage with science.
C. U. M. Smith, Eugenio Frixione, Stanley Finger, and William Clower
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199766499
- eISBN:
- 9780199950263
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199766499.003.0016
- Subject:
- Neuroscience, History of Neuroscience
This chapter summarizes important points that have been made in this book on the emergence of the animal spirit paradigm, its development, and how it was replaced by the notion of electricity. It ...
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This chapter summarizes important points that have been made in this book on the emergence of the animal spirit paradigm, its development, and how it was replaced by the notion of electricity. It reviews the ideas and concepts that led to the evolution of the animal spirit doctrine, and then discusses some notable individuals whose works helped improve current knowledge. This chapter also states that the present study tried to provide examples of how new ideas could emerge and how changes can occur in the life sciences.Less
This chapter summarizes important points that have been made in this book on the emergence of the animal spirit paradigm, its development, and how it was replaced by the notion of electricity. It reviews the ideas and concepts that led to the evolution of the animal spirit doctrine, and then discusses some notable individuals whose works helped improve current knowledge. This chapter also states that the present study tried to provide examples of how new ideas could emerge and how changes can occur in the life sciences.
