Introduces the diverse roles metaphors play in the life sciences and highlights their significance for theory, communication, and education.

An international journal of research in the public dimensions of science and technology.

Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences contains a series of explorations of the different ways in which the social sciences have interacted with the natural sciences. Usually, such interactions are considered to go only `one way': from the natural to the social sciences. But there are several important essays in this volume which show how developments in the social sciences have affected the natural sciences - even the `hard' science of physics. Other essays deal with various types of interaction since the Scientific Revolution. In his general introductory chapter, Cohen sets some general themes concerning analogies and homologies and the use of metaphors, drawing specific examples from the use of concepts of physics by marginalist economists and of developments in the life sciences by organismic sociologists. The remaining chapters, which explore the different ways in which the social sciences and the natural sciences have actually interacted, are written by leaders in the field of history of science, drawn from a wide range of countries and disciplines. The book will be of great interest to all historians of science, philosophers interested in questions of methodology, economists and sociologists, and all social scientists concerned with the history of their subject and its foundations.

In this groundbreaking book, authors Jose B. Ashford (an expert in the relationships among human development, crime, and psychopathology), Craig Winston LeCroy (an expert in child and adolescent behavior), and Kathy L. Lortie (an expert in infant mental health) offer a text that is more balanced, integrated, and applied than other texts for the course. In addition, the book's multidimensional framework, integration of the biopsychosocial dimensions for assessing social functioning, attention to foundation knowledge and diversity, and use of case studies to illuminate the applied aspects of HBSE content all combine to give readers an experience that is meaningful and exciting. Using a unique, multidimensional framework for assessing behavior, the authors look at biopsychosocial development across the life span. Lively and comprehensive, this book succeeds where other have failed--it helps students connect foundation knowledge with practice concerns.

In this groundbreaking new study, Lowell Nissen explores the use of teleological language in the study of subjects such as behaviorism, negative feedback, and natural selection. He argues that all existing analyses fail to explain how teleological language can be used legitimately, and provides his own analysis in terms of intentionality.