Explores the debate on the biological significance and cultural meaning of genes in the development of organisms -- the molecular paradigm.

Introduction / Eva M. Neumann-Held and Christoph Rehmann-Sutter 1
I. Empirical Approaches
1. Genome Analysis and Developmental Biology: The Nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as a Model System / Thomas R. Burglin 15
2. Genes and Form: Inherency in the Evolution of Developmental Mechanisms / Stuart A. Newman and Gerd B. Muller 38
II. Looking Back into History
3. From Genes as Determinants to DNA as Resource: Historical Notes on Development and Genetics / Sahotra Sarkar 77
III. Theorizing Genes
4. The Origin of Species: A Structuralist Approach / Gerry Webster and Brian C. Goodwin 99
5. On the Problem of the Molecular versus the Organismic Approach in Biology / Ulrich Wolf 135
6. Genes, Development, and Semiosis / Jesper Hoffmeyer 152
7. The Fearless Vampire Conservator: Philip Kitcher, Genetic Determinism, and the Informational Gene / Paul E. Griffiths 175
8. Genetics from an Evolutionary Process Perspective / James Griesemer 199
9. Genes-Causes-Codes: Deciphering DNA’s Ontological Privilege / Eva M. Newmann-Held 238
10. Boundaries and (Constructive) Interaction / Susan Oyama 272
11. Beyond the Gene but Beneath the Skin / Evelyn Fox Keller 290
12. Poiesis and Praxis: Two Modes of Understanding Development / Christoph Rehmann-Sutter 313
IV. Social and Ethical Implications
13. Developmental Emergence, Genes, and Responsible Science / Brian C. Goodwin 337
14. Nothing Like a Gene / Jackie Leach Scully 349
Contributors 365
Index 369

Eva M. Neumann-Held is Research Assistant and Lecturer in Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Dortmund in Germany.

Christoph Rehmann-Sutter is Assistant Professor for Ethics in Biosciences and Biotechnology at the University of Basel in Switzerland.