Abstract
RECOGNISING it as something new in biological literature, biologists everywhere will warmly welcome Dr. Bertalanffy's new book on theoretical biology. For unlike most writers in this field, he is not content to bring forward a heterogeneous mass of purely biological facts which call for, but do not receive, any satisfactory explanation from ‘pre-Copernican’ biology; on the contrary, he realises that whatever else may be needed, all that the methods of physics and chemistry can tell us about the living being is a quite indispensable foundation for biological theory. Hence in his book we find, side by side with chapters on logic and methodology or on Entwicklung smechanik, discussions of the colloidal properties of living substance, the permeability problem, or the energetics of carbon compound reactions. Such a synthesis has never before been attempted.
Theoretische Biologie.
Von Dr. Ludwig v. Bertalanffy. Band 1: Allgemeine Theorie, Physikochemie, Aufbau und Entwicklung des Organismus. Pp. xii + 349. (Berlin: Gebrüder Borntraeger, 1932.) 18 gold marks.
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NEEDHAM, J. Theoretische Biologie. Nature 132, 986–987 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/132986a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/132986a0
