In Context #3

Spring 2000

Feature Articles

“Where Do Organisms End?”
By Craig Holdrege
Ants, giraffes, and bison illustrate how inappropriate it can be to draw rigid lines between organisms and their environment.

“The Straitening of Science”
By Stephen L. Talbott
Do physical objects naturally move in straight lines unless interfered with, as Newton suggested? If we’re really talking about the nature of things, perhaps it makes more sense to say that they most naturally move curvilinearly.

Notes and Reviews

“Toward a ‘Final Theory’ of the Sloth?”
By Stephen L. Talbott
The search for evolutionary mechanisms easily makes us indifferent to the organisms we originally set out to understand. What the mechanisms leave out is the integrity, the coherent idea, of the organism.

“What Do Experiments Prove?”
By Craig Holdrege
New experiments with mice (reported in Science) show rather dramatically how isolated, decontextualized, and artificial the results of much research can be.

“Experiential Physics”
By Stephen L. Talbott
Review of Sensible Physics Teaching, by Michael D’Aleo and Stephen Edelglass (Chestnut Ridge, NY: Parker Courtney Press, 1999). Includes an excerpt from the book’s introduction.