PUBLICATIONS
Forthcoming
Metamorphosis: A Personal History (Basic Books/John Murray)
Benny the Butterfly series (Lama Books)
2024
"The Mystery of Darwin's Notebooks", Galileo Tza'ir (Hebrew)
Darwin's Missing Notebooks, Lama Books, 2024 (Hebrew), trans. Turkish, Chinese, Polish
2023
"'Keep The Faith': Memories of Everett Mendelsohn", Journal of the History of Biology, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-023-09750-8
"Past Mysteries", The Spectator, November 18, 2023
"On Butterflies and Truths", with Lorraine Daston, Köpfe und Ideen 18, 2023, pp. 32-49
"Is There Really 'Nothing Unnatural About Nature?'", European Legacy 28 No. 3-4, 2023, pp. 389-393
2022
"Bedeviled: A Shadow History of Demons in Science - Review", Common Knowledge 28 (3), 2022, pp. 447-449
"Why Fish Don't Exist - Review", Common Knowledge 28 (2), 2022, pp. 293-295
New Directions in the Historiography of Genetics, editor with Yafeng Shan and Ehud Lamm, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Elsevier, 2022, https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/studies-in-history-and-philosophy-of-science/special-issue/10F0Z5KLVD1
"'History Will Be Kind to Me': An Introduction to New Directions in the Historiography of Genetics”, with Yafeng Shan and Ehud Lamm, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2022.09.009
"How to Think Like Shakespeare (at least some of the time)", The European Legacy, 27:7-8, pp. 825-832, https://doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2022.2058750
"A Conversation with Darwin on Man Revisited: 150 Years to The Descent of Man", Journal of the History of Biology, 55:1, pp. 185-201, 2022, DOI: 10.1007/s10739-022-09673-w
2021
“Richard Lewontin and the ‘Complications of Linkage’”, with Michael R. Dietrich and Ehud Lamm,
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 88, 2021, pp. 237-244
Handbook of the Historiography of Biology, ed. with Michael Dietrich and Mark Borrello, (Springer, 2021)
"Rafi Falk: In Memoriam", (in Hebrew), Zmanim 145, 2021, pp. 114-115
2020
"Thomas Harriot: A Life in Science - Review", Common Knowledge 27:1, pp. 121-2
"New Perspectives on the Historiography of Biology", with Michael Dietrich and Mark Borrello, in Handbook of the Historiography of Biology, ed. with Michael Dietrich and Mark Borrello, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74456-8_3-1 (Springer, 2020)
“Atlas of Poetic Zoology, a review”, The European Legacy, https://doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2020.1785127
"We Live on the Diagonal of a Square", The European Legacy, 26, 2, 2020, pp. 194-200, https://doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2020.1732721
“Friedrich Miescher's Discovery in the Historiography of Genetics: From Contamination to Confusion,
from Nuclein to DNA”, with Sophie Veigl and Ehud Lamm, Journal of the History of Biology, 53, 3,
2020, pp. 451-484
"Before Watson and Crick in 1953 came Friedrich Miescher in 1869", with Sophie Veigl and Ehud Lamm,
Genetics 215, 2020, pp. 291-296
"All Too Kind", The Spectator, May 30, 2020
“When Science Mirrors Life: On the Origins of the Price Equation”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B Vol. 375 Issue 1797, https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0352
"A World Without Genes" (in Hebrew), Hazman Haze, January 8, 2020
2019
“Travelling with Einstein”, The European Legacy, https://doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2019.1705626
“Darwin’s Really Dangerous Idea”, Science and Education, 28(6), 2019, pp. 803-812
2018
Evolutions: Fifteen Myths That Explain Our World (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2018) [trans. Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Hebrew, Malayalam, Italian]
“Will We Care About Genes At All In 100 Years?”, The Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2018
“In the Future There Will Be No Genes”, Acta Biotheoretica, 66:2, 2018, pp. 149-157
“Progress Is Not an Illusion”, Science and Education, 27, 2018, pp. 219-224
“The Life and Times of a Scientific Mistress”, Raritan: A Quarterly Review, 2018, pp. 97-114
“The Lure of the Leak”, The European Legacy, 23:1-2, 2018, pp. 164-167
“It Is Highly Unlikely That Any of This Exists: On the Origins of the Universe”, Literary Hub, June 13, 2018
“Bombers and Pterosaurs Were Both Before Their Time: The Evolution of B-2s and Lizards”, Nautilus, 59, April 19, 2018
Dreamers, Visionaries and Revolutionaries in the Life Sciences, ed. with Michael Dietrich (University of Chicago Press, 2018) [trans. Chinese]
“Peter Kropotkin: Anarchist, Revolutionary, Dreamer”, in Dreamers, Visionaries and Revolutionaries in the Life Sciences, ed. with Michael Dietrich, (University of Chicago Press, 2018), pp. 51-67
“Perchance to Dream: Fostering Novelty in the Life Sciences”, in Oren Harman and Michael Dietrich, eds., Dreamers, Visionaries and Revolutionaries in the Life Sciences, ed. with Michael Dietrich, (University of Chicago Press, 2018), pp. 1-17
“Scientific Biography”, Handbook of the Historiography of Biology, eds. Michael Dietrich, Mark Borrello, Oren Harman, (Springer, 2018), pp. 1-26
“Epistemic Virtues in the Sciences and the Humanities – Review”, Isis, 9 no. 4, 2018, pp. 875-876
“The Theory That Changed Everything: On The Origin of Species as a Work in Progress”, European Legacy, 2018, 24, 3-4, pp. 456-458, https://doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2018.1549845
“Elliot Sober’s Occam’s Razors – Review”, Common Knowledge, 24:3, 2018, p. 452-453
“Paul Feyerabend’s Philosophy of Nature – Review”, Common Knowledge, 24:3, 2018, pp. 438-439
“The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate that Changed Our Understanding of Time – Review”, Common Knowledge, 24:1, 2018, p. 167-168.
2017
“The Astronomer and the Witch: Johannes Kepler’s Fight for his Mother – Review”, Common Knowledge, 23:3, 2017, p. 356
“Chaos Imagined: Literature Art Science - Review”, Common Knowledge, 23:2, 2017, p. 346
2016
“Avoiding Weird Parents”, Current Anthropology, 57, 4, 2016, pp. 422-425
“The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science – Review”, Common Knowledge, 22, 1, 2016, p. 128
2015
“Evolution On One Foot”, Journal of the History of Biology, 48, 2, 2015, pp. 337-351
“The Altruism Game”, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 13, 2015, pp. 6-9
“Newton and the Origin of Civilization: Review”, Common Knowledge, 21:1, 2015, 124
2014
“The Earthquake Following the Tragedy”, Haaretz Magazine (Hebrew), December 5, 2014, pp. 48-53
“Chance and Necessity Revisited”, Journal of the History of Biology, 47, 3, 2014, pp. 479-493
“What We Could Learn From Dr. Dolittle”, Haaretz Magazine (Hebrew), August 8, 2014, pp. 46-52
“Chance and Necessity Revisited”, The Los Angeles Review of Books, July 24, 2014 (an abridged version of the JHB article)
“The Philospher and the Scientist”, Haaretz Magazine (Hebrew), July 18, 2014, pp. 48-53
“To My Unborn Baby”, Odyssey (Hebrew), July 2014, p. 9
“Phase Transitions of Humanity”, Haaretz Magazine (Hebrew), June 20, 2014, pp. 56-61
“On Physics, Free Will, and Traffic Jams”, Haaretz Magazine (Hebrew), June 13, 2014, pp. 58-61
“A Worthy Degree”, Haaretz Magazine, (Hebrew), April 4, 2014, p. 61
“A History of the Altruism-Morality Debate in Biology”, Behaviour, 151, 2014, pp. 147-165. Reprinted in Evolved Morality: Biology and Philosophy of Human Conscience, eds. Frans de Waal, Patricia Smith Churchand, Telmo Pievani and Stefano Parmigiani, pp. 11-29 (Brill, 2014)
2013
“Altruism: A Saga”, Israel Journal of Ecology and Evolution, 59, 2, 2013, pp. 117-124
“When Koko Starts to Speak”, Haaretz Magazine (Hebrew), December 13, 2013, pp. 46-53
Outsider Scientists: Routes to Innovation in Biology, with Michael Dietrich, (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
“Explaining the Gap: On Humans and Other Animals”, Journal of the History of Biology, 46, 4, 2013, pp. 739-755
“Outsiders as Innovators in the Life Sciences”, with Michael Dietrich, in Outsider Scientists: Routes to Innovation in Biology, (University of Chicago Press, 2013), pp. 1-26
“On the Importance of the Parvenu: The amazing case of George Price in evolutionary biology”, in Outsider Scientists: Routes to Innovation in Biology, (University of Chicago Press, 2013), pp. 312-330.
Guest Editor, Special Issue, “Approaches, Styles, and Narratives: Reflections on Doing History of the Sciences”, Science in Context, 26, 4, 2013
“Right as diverse pathes leden”, in “Approaches, Styles, and Narratives: Reflections on Doing History of the Sciences”, ed. Oren Harman, Science in Context, 26, 4, 2013, pp. 553-555
“Unformed Minds: Juveniles, Neuroscience and the Law”, Studies in the History and Philosophy of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 44, 3, 2013, pp. 455-459
“On Modelling Emergence” with Stephen Grand, Biological Theory, 8, 1, 2013, pp. 7-14
“The Music of Life: Biology Beyong Dreams - Review”, Nature, 499, 2013, p. 151
“The Curse of Orpheus”, Haaretz Magazine, (Hebrew), June 28, 2013, pp. 34-40
“The Hero Gene”, in Southern Cinema: Contemplation and Criticism, eds. Erez Perry and Efrat Korem, (Hebrew), Resling, 2013, pp. 173-177
“Protecting the Gene”, Haaretz Magazine, (Hebrew), May 31, 2013, pp. 54-58
“Shakespeare Among the Ants”, Studies in the History and Philosophy of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 44, 2013, pp. 114-118
“Gentle Giant of Genetics”, Nature, 495, 2013, p. 313
“President McKinley’s Spider”, Haaretz Magazine, (Hebrew), March 8, 2013, pp. 54-55
“On Spinach and Other Tales”, Haaretz Magazine, (Hebrew), February 1, 2013, pp. 54-59
“The Un-grownup”, Haaretz Magazine, (Hebrew), January 4, 2013, pp. 54-58
2012
“The Mystery of Altruism”, Science in School, 25, 2012
“Is the Naturalistic Fallacy Dead? (And If So, Ought It Be?)”, Journal of the History of Biology, 45, 3, 2012, pp. 557-572
“Does Biology Make Us Liars?”, The New Republic, October 25, 2012, pp. 56-59
“War or Peace?: Huxley and Kropotkin’s Battle Over the Design of Virtue”, in Origins of Design in Nature, eds. Liz Swan, Richard Gordon and Joseph Seckbach, (Springer, 2012), pp. 89-110
“Light from the Devil”, Haaretz Magazine, (Hebrew) December 7, 2012, pp. 54-57
“A Bed of Displeasure”, Haaretz Magazine, (Hebrew) November 9, 2012, pp. 56-58
“Radioactive Cocktail”, Haaretz Magazine, (Hebrew) October 10, 2012, pp. 60-61
“What Asparagus’s Talk About When They Talk About Love”, Haaretz Magazine, September 14, 2012, pp. 74-77
“We Are the 12%”, Haaretz Magazine, August 17, 2012, pp. 58-59
“Dogs as Pets: How dogs may have helped Homo sapiens triumph over Neanderthals”, Haaretz Magazine, August 2, 2012, pp. 60-62
“Islam and the Scientist Pope”, Odyssey (Hebrew), 15, 2012, pp. 60-67
Review of Reforming Science Beyond Belief by Brian Ridley, The European Legacy 17:2, 2012, pp. 258-259
Review of Objectivity by Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, The European Legacy, 17:2, 2012, 259-260.
2011
“E.O. Wilson and Critics Argue But Not in the Same Tongue”, Haaretz, October 11, 2011
“The Myth of Disinterested Science”, Journal of the History of Biology, 44, 2, 2011, pp. 345-355.
“Birth of the First ESS: John Maynard Smith, George Price, and the discovery of the lost ‘Antlers’ Paper”, J. Exp. Zool. B (Mol. Dev. Evol.), 316, 1, 2011, pp. 1-9
“Scientifc Biography: A Many Faced Art Form”, Journal of the History of Biology, 44, 4, 2011, pp. 607-609
Guest Editor, Special Volume, “The Art of Scientific Biography”, Journal of the History of Biology, 44, 4, 2011.
“Helical Biography and the Historical Craft: The Case of Altruism and George Price”, Journal of the History of Biology, 44, 4, 2011, pp. 671-691
“How Evolution Explains Altruism”, review of Supercooperators by Martin A. Nowak, New York Times Book Review, April 10, 2011
“Why Scientific Lives?”, review of Remarkable Biologists: From Ray to Hamilton by Ioan James, Bioscience 61, no. 1, 2011, pp. 79-81
Review of Revolutionaries of the Cosmos: The Astro-Physicists by I.S. Glass, The European Legacy 16:2, 2011, 260
2010
Review of The Harvest of a Century: Discoveries of Modern Physics in a 100 Episodes by Siegmund Brandt, The European Legacy, 15:1, 2010, pp. 98-99
“If I were King for a Day”, The Big Issue, May 24, 2010 p. 46
“Analyzing Altruism”, Forbes.com, June 7, 2010
The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness (W.W. Norton, 2010) (Bodley Head/Random House, 2010) [Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, Winner 2010 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2010, American Library Association 25 Best book of 2010, Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Writing Long List)] [trans. Hebrew, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Polish]
“Ultimate Acts of Sacrifice: On Bees and Men”, The Huffington Post.com, July 15, 2010
“Early Enlightenment”, The New Republic, November 3, 2011, pp. 40-43
“The Price of Altruism and the Limits of Scientific Inquiry”, BMC Proceedings, 5 (suppl. 1) 2011, p. 11
“Infinite Life”, The New Republic, August 12, 2010, pp. 36-39
“Life in the Infinite Expanse”, Odyssey (Hebrew), 7, 2010, pp. 52-62
2008
“Time After Time”, The New Republic, December 24, 2008, pp. 44-47
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin (Hebrew), Scientific Editor, (Resling, 2008)
Guest Editor, Special Volume, “Towards New Paradigms: The Language of the Sciences and the Language of the Humanities,” The European Legacy: The Journal of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas, vol. 3 no. 5, August 2008
“Epistemic Virtues and Leibnitzian Dreams: on Science, Faith and the Humanities,” with Peter Galison, The European Legacy: The Journal of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas, vol. 3, no. 5, August 2008, pp. 551-575
Rebels, Mavericks, and Heretics in Biology, co-edited with Michael Dietrich, (Yale University Press, 2008)
“On Rebels, Icons and the Value of Dissent,” in Rebels, Mavericks, and Heretics in Biology, eds. Oren Harman and Michael Dietrich, (Yale University Press, 2008), pp. 1-19
“Dynamic Dissent,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 8 2008, pp. 7-9
“The Quest for the Origins of Kindness,” Odyssey (Hebrew), 1, 2008, pp. 30-37
“The Wonderful World of Molecular Clocks”, Galileo (Hebrew), 117, 2008, pp. 62-70
“When Philosophy of Science Counts,” Minerva: An International Review of Science, Learning & Policy, 46, 2008, pp. 133-138
“In Weismann’s Footsteps: The Cyto-rebellion of C.D. Darlington,” in Rebels, Mavericks, and Heretics in Biology, eds. Oren Harman and Michael Dietrich, (Yale University Press, 2008), pp. 103-118
“Neo-Darwinism and Random Variation, Or Why It’s Important to Read Darwin Carefully,” in Divine Action and Natural Selection: Questions of Science and Faith in Biological Evolution ed. Joseph Seckbach, (World Scientific, 2008), pp. 138-152
“Increasing Overlapping Magisteria of Science and Religion: A Discussion with Charles H. Lineweaver”, in Divine Action and Natural Selection: Questions of Science and Faith in Biological Evolution ed. Joseph Seckbach, (World Scientific, 2008), pp. 171-181
“What Darwin Would Have Been Happy to Learn From Us, and What We Can Still Learn From Him”, Epilogue to The Autobiography of Charles Darwin (Hebrew), (Resling, 2008), pp. 109-142
"Pure Intelligence: On Intelligence Testing, Puritanism, and the Methods and Burdens of History," Journal of the History of Biology, 41, 2008, pp. 167-183
2007
“Nice Genes,” The New Republic, November 5, 2007, pp. 50-55
“On the Power of Ideas,” Minerva: An International Review of Science, Learning & Policy, 45, 2007, pp. 175-189
“Powerful Intuitions: Re-reading Nature versus Nurture with Charles Darwin and Clifford Geertz,” Science in Context 20 (1), Spring 2007, pp. 49-70
“Sermons in Stone,” The New Republic, February 2, 2007, pp. 27-33
Review of Jewish Tradition and the Challenge of Darwinism eds. Geoffrey Cantor and Marc Swetlitz, Reports of the National Center for Science Education, vol. 27 no. 1-2, 2007, pp. 47-48
“Haldane and Darlington,” Haldane Newsletter no. 2, ed. Krishna R. Dronamraju, Foundation for Genetic Research, Houston TX, March 2007
2006
“The Evolution of Evolution,” The New Republic, September 4, 2006, pp. 27-33
“Method as a Function of Disciplinary Landscape: C.D. Darlington and the History of Cytology 1925-1950,” Journal of the History of Biology, 39 (1), 2006, pp. 165-197
“History of Classical Genetics,” in Encyclopedia of the Life Sciences (John Wiley and Sons, Ltd: Chichester), January 2006, 18 pages, http://www.els.net/
2005
“A Master Synthesizer: L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza,” American Scientist, vol. 93 no. 5, September-October 2005, pp. 457-459
Review of Democracy, Fascism and the New World Order by Ivo Mosley, The European Legacy: The Journal for the Study of European Ideas (ISSEI), vol. 10 (4), 2005, pp. 406-407
“Particles of Truth,” The New Republic, August 1, 2005, pp. 28-33
“The Cyril Dean Darlington Papers,” Mendel Newsletter, The American Philosophical Society, no. 14, March 2005, pp. 4-6
“Cyril Dean Darlington: The Man Who Invented the Chromosome,” Nature Reviews Genetics, 6 (1), January 2005, pp. 79-85
2004
The Man Who Invented the Chromosome: A Life of C.D. Darlington (Harvard University Press, 2004) [trans. Chinese]
“The Evolution of a Naturalist,” American Scientist, vol. 92 no. 5, September-October 2004, pp. 470-473
“The Essential Element,” The New Republic, August 30, 2004, pp. 31-37
“A Century of Nature: Twenty-One Discoveries that Changed Science and the World: Review,” Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Vol. 291, No. 24, June 2004, pp. 3014-3015
“Francois Jacob and the Birth of Molecular Biology” in On Flies Mice and Men by Francois Jacob (Hebrew), (Proza Press, Yediot Ahronot, 2004), pp. 11-30
2003
“C.D. Darlington, and the British and American Reaction to Lysenko and the Soviet Conception of Science,” Journal of the History of Biology, 36 (2), 2003, pp. 309-352
“Afterword: White-Coat Experts and Justice Mongers” in The Fatal Eggs by Mikhail Bulgakov (Hebrew), (Proza Press, Yediot Ahronot, 2003), pp. 148-168
“C.D. Darlington and the Invention of the Chromosome,” Endeavour, 27 (2), 2003, pp. 69-74
“Population Genetics,” in Oxford Companion for the History of Modern Science, ed. John L. Heilbron, (Oxford, 2003), pp. 668-670