Before becoming active in the history and philosophy of science, Evelyn Fox Keller had worked in physics, in mathematical biology, and also in feminist theory. Many know about her publications in that last field. However, it is perhaps less known to historians and philosophers of science that her contributions to mathematical biology are still often quoted by practitioners of this field.? In fact, as the article on which this issue comments and many others amply demonstrate, Keller never gave up participating actively in the reflection about life sciences, in particular genetics, and interacting with biologists. It is from this perspective that we can read her article about scientific cultures for what it reveals about scientific cultures. Keller's starting point in this article is the conviction that the language currently used by biologists and primarily by geneticists might hinder due attention to tempo rality and to key phenomena that unfold in time. She argues that the overwhelming use of nouns in genetics—to begin with, the noun gene—meshes with an all too prominent emphasis placed on stable entities in the interpretation of phenomena. Keller attributes this feature to an entrenched and tacit commitment to what she calls an "entity...
