“A particularly refreshing aspect of Craver and Darden’s account is that it does not advocate for one particular point of view while criticizing the arguments of others. Instead, the different aspects of mechanistic research (and thus its complexity and diversity) are laid out, well illustrated by a variety of examples from such different biological fields as molecular genetics, physiology, and neuroscience, often—though not exclusively—from the twentieth century.”

Ingo Brigandt | Isis

“Craver and Darden have played a key role in shifting the attention of philosophers to mechanisms over the last decade. The literature on mechanisms in philosophy of science is now vast and for good reason: If we want to understand how the majority of biological research is done today, we have to understand how scientists reason about mechanisms. . . . In Search of Mechanisms provides a unique and accessible contribution to both studies of science and science itself.”

Marta Halina | Metascience

“It is a pleasure to read how investigators proceed from How…possibly? to How…actually, from rough black box sketches on napkins to ’glass boxes’ whose inner workings are fully revealed…. [A] readable, recommended book.”

Bioscience

“A well-written and well-thought-out book that goes into the thought processes of scientists and how they work. Scientists may use a different vocabulary to describe how they work, but they will benefit from the insights of Craver and Darden as they explore how scientists in anatomy, physiology, genetics, developmental biology, and neuroscience worked out some of the major findings of the 20th century.”

Elof Axel Carlson, Stony Brook University | Quarterly Review of Biology

“A highly readable and disciplinarily diverse compendium of the varieties of mechanisms encountered in biological systems and the means by which they are studied. For this reason, and the fact that much of the substantial earlier material on this subject was written by the two authors, Carl Craver and Lindley Darden, individually and jointly, it is likely to be the classic reference in this area for many years. . . . This is a needed work on a critical biological subject, and it is implemented in a wide-ranging and accessible fashion.”

Stuart A. Newman, New York Medical College | Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

“Carl F. Craver and Lindley Darden eloquently describe the discovery of mechanisms and reasoning about them and show how mechanisms provide an integrative way of understanding the unity of biology. This book ranges across many areas of biology and is highly readable, with rich examples and a minimum of philosophical jargon. It substantially advances the philosophy and history of science and can seriously help biologists to understand their own work.”

Paul Thagard, University of Waterloo

“Pioneers in the new philosophy of science, Carl F. Craver and Lindley Darden have produced the first systematic yet highly accessible analysis of what mechanisms are and how they figure in explanations, especially in the biological sciences. Loaded with clear examples, the authors provide a richly illustrated account of how scientists discover and investigate mechanisms and revise their accounts of them over time. The authors show in a compelling manner how research on mechanisms is often the focus of research integrating multiple fields of biology. Anyone from a beginning undergraduate to a professional biologist or philosopher will find his or her understanding of biology enriched by this book.”

William Bechtel, University of California, San Diego