Discovering Life, Manufacturing Life

This book tells the story of how thinkers, over time, have dared to explore using experimental devices and how the experimental method established itself and took a predominant role in the life sciences. While life sciences continue to advance and knowledge becomes more widespread and accessible, philosophers now focus on problems of ethics particularly with respect to the reproductive functions that contemporary biology is able to manipulate and modify.Looking at the stunning progress made by scientific thought over the last five centuries we might ask ourselves what were the triggering factors that lead to the experimental method. How did this logical and objective approach to the exploration of various enigmas in nature arise and spread at a particular moment in time in the western world? Was there an influence from the social, religious or political context? Was the energy of a few individuals sufficient to initiate such a revolution?The authors of this book take us on journey of the mind, from the ancient roots of scientific rationality to today’s irresistible trend in genetic manipulation, particularly focused on human beings. Inevitably this will lead the reader to view the way in which science is done today under a new light. A fascinating discussion, based on concrete examples and experiments, provides food for thought, not only with respect to the experimental method itself, but also regarding the organization of science as it exists today and how it is perceived.

Pierre V. Vignais, both doctor of medicine and a science doctor (Paris Pasteur Institute), Professor emeritus of Biochemistry at the School of Medicine of the Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble, France, and Head of a CEA-CNRS Research Unit, was awarded the CNRS Silver Medal and the Grand Prix del' Academie des Sciences. He published over 300 scientific articles in the field of cellular bioenergetics and metabolism and wrote books on epistemology and salient features of the scientific approach like the present one. He died in September 2006.
Paulette M. Vignais, his wife and collaborator, Chemist and doctor in Biochemistry, created the CEA-CNRS laboratory of Microbial Biochemistry. She retired from a position of Emeritus Director of Research at the CNRS.