Over the course of the last three decades, computer simulations have become a major tool of doing science and engaging with the world, not least in an effort to predict and intervene in a future to come. Born in the context of the Second World War and the discipline of physics, simulations have long spread into most diverse fields of enquiry and technological application. This paper introduces a topical collection focussing on simulations in the life sciences. Echoing the current state of tinkering, fast developments, segmentation of knowledge and interdisciplinary collaboration, and in an effort to bridge the science-humanities divide, the contributors to this collection come from multiple disciplinary backgrounds, including information studies, cognitive sciences, philosophy and biology. The ambiguous character of simulations, their cutting across scientific disciplines, analysis and prediction, understanding and doing, gave rise to their success in contemporary life sciences and has been the object of much scientific debate. One of the main aims of this topical collection, by contrast, is to call into question the assumption of an obvious use and easy transfer of methods between fields of knowledge as diverse as, e.g. physics and biology. The collection presents historical case studies from various biological sub-fields. The articles study how simulations are used and the ways they contribute specifically to our understanding of life. Taking up Sergio Sismondo’s description of simulations as “compromises” and “glue”, they also critically engage with the question of what exactly the life sciences have been gluing together over the last two decades.
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Book
Sebastian Vehlken;
(2019)
Zootechnologies: A Media History of Swarm Research
(/isis/citation/CBB504746255/)
Article
Moa Carlsson;
(April 2022)
Computing views, remodeling environments
(/isis/citation/CBB726932342/)
Article
David Sepkoski;
(2016)
“Replaying Life's Tape”: Simulations, metaphors, and historicity in Stephen Jay Gould's view of life
(/isis/citation/CBB998505163/)
Book
Giovanni Battimelli;
Giovanni Ciccotti;
Pietro Greco;
(2020)
Computer Meets Theoretical Physics: The New Frontier of Molecular Simulation
(/isis/citation/CBB746858355/)
Article
Miles MacLeod;
Nancy J. Nersessian;
(2019)
Mesoscopic modeling as a cognitive strategy for handling complex biological systems
(/isis/citation/CBB904044166/)
Article
García-Sancho, Miguel;
(2012)
From the Genetic to the Computer Program: The Historicity of “Data” and “Computation” in the Investigations on the Nematode Worm C. elegans (1963--1998)
(/isis/citation/CBB001221583/)
Article
Arata, Luis O.;
(2014)
Reflections on Modelling Across the Arts and Sciences
(/isis/citation/CBB001201228/)
Article
Miles MacLeod;
Nancy J. Nersessian;
(2018)
Modeling Complexity: Cognitive Constraints and Computational Model-Building in Integrative Systems Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB935002178/)
Thesis
Mayo, Lee Allen;
(2011)
Simulation without Replication: How Some Digital Computer Simulations Serve as Scientific Experiments
(/isis/citation/CBB001567307/)
Chapter
Keller, Evelyn Fox;
(2010)
Contenders for Life: Approaches from Physics, Biology, and Engineering
(/isis/citation/CBB001023237/)
Book
Jill Lepore;
(2020)
If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future
(/isis/citation/CBB790156177/)
Book
Stevens, Hallam;
(2013)
Life out of Sequence: A Data-Driven History of Bioinformatics
(/isis/citation/CBB001213157/)
Article
Enrico Petracca;
(2022)
Simulating Marx: Herbert A. Simon's cognitivist approach to dialectical materialism
(/isis/citation/CBB036748823/)
Article
Justin Price;
(2020)
Model transfer and conceptual progress: tales from chemistry and biology
(/isis/citation/CBB396720639/)
Article
Daniel Mason;
Honor Hsin;
(2018)
‘A more perfect arrangement of plants’: the botanical model in psychiatric nosology, 1676 to the present day
(/isis/citation/CBB222714448/)
Article
Asaro, Peter;
(2008)
Computer als Modelle des Geistes. Über Simulation und das Gehirn als Modell des Designs von Computern
(/isis/citation/CBB001032251/)
Article
Morgan, Mary S.;
Grüne-Yanoff, Till;
(2013)
Modeling Practices in the Social and Human Sciences. An Interdisciplinary Exchange
(/isis/citation/CBB001320394/)
Essay Review
Fuqua, Joy V.;
(2013)
Visions of Technology, Gender, and Knowledge Production
(/isis/citation/CBB001566402/)
Article
Bernard Engel;
Melba Crawford;
Keith Cherkauer;
Indrajeet Chaubey;
(Fall 2011)
Multiscale Sensing and Modeling Frameworks Integrating Field to Continental Scales
(/isis/citation/CBB330190564/)
Article
Siddique Latif;
Adnan Qayyum;
Muhammad Usama;
Junaid Qadir;
Andrej Zwitter;
Muhammad Shahzad;
(September 2019)
Caveat Emptor: The Risks of Using Big Data for Human Development
(/isis/citation/CBB326485886/)
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