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Summary lectures history of biology
- Instelling
- Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen (RU)
summary history of biology lectures
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Voorbeeld 4 van de 72 pagina's
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Voorbeeld van de inhoud
1 Why and how? (lecture 1)1.1 Why study history of biology?
1. Learn from your mistakes e.g. eugenics
2. Identity: who are we? Who are our examples? Who is ‘in/out’? e.g. heroes in textbooks
3. What are our problems? What should we focus on? What can we expect? E.g. difficult
relation biology with society
4. What have we forgotten? Do we risk losing something valuable? Selective memory? E.g.
taxonomic field knowledge
The celebration of the ‘founding fathers’, the ‘heroes’, strengthens the identity and the fundamental
assumptions of biology.
Problems with ‘textbook-history’:
- Heroes are selective: only the geniuses, the ‘great men’
- Usually portrays the defeated poorly (even though they may have had merits) e.g. Lamarck
- Societal context largely ignored
- Often written for present purposes, rather than in historic setting (hence ‘presentism’)
- Story of progress, with us at the top; it disregards the side branches influences on the
mainstream.
Most history books start with Aristoteles (384-322 BC)
Empirical observations:
- Classification of 500 species
- Embryo studies through a study of eggs
- Some 50 animal dissections
- Got stories of fishers, farmers, & hunters
Theoretical contributions:
- In search of organism’s ‘essence’, as ‘explanation’ of its functions
Is he, the first biologist, our ‘hero’?
Aristotle described the Hectocotylus (= reproductive organ of a male octopus). In the 19 th century it
was rediscovered by Cuvier. He however saw this as an example of Aristotle’s meticulous empirical
research, ‘far ahead of his time’. He put himself in the tradition of the great Aristotle. He is equating
himself to Aristotle. says more about the user; he is using Aristotle
The Middle Ages, Linnaeus, and Cuvier all flirted with Aristotle, but praised different
qualities: sometimes his theory, sometimes observations.
So was he the first biologist or who was he at all ? This depends on the context we put him in:
different times and people praised his various aspects depending on what personal quality of
themselves they wanted to emphasise.
Why was he not the first biologist?
China: herbs and medicine; 1st millennium BC! Was advanced in math, astronomy,
technology; paper 2nd century, gunpowder 9th, compass 11th c.
Mesopotamia: large scale agriculture (5000BC), astronomy, abacus (c2500BC)
, Egypt: mummification from 3300BC onward, Imhotep = physician 27 th BC
Aristotle as our first biologist is a Western bias. He is seen as important from our culture due to:
- Source and authority until ca. 17th c. - Revival with revival of the classics in
- A constant reference in philosophy 19th c.
There is no clear beginning. It depends on what you consider crucial to ‘biology’ That determines
what you consider relevant to Aristotle. :
- Detailed knowledge? (shaman, - Experiments, instruments? (17th C)
hunter, farmer) - Self-conscious discipline? (c1800 the
- Systematic empirical study? (e.g. label ‘biology’)
Aristotle) - Professional organisation of biology?
- Theory? (4th BC philosophy) (19th c)
- Biology and medicine? - Hypothetical-deductive method? (20th
(Hippocrates 460-461 BC) c)
‘Presentism’ = utilising history for present purposes, judged by what we know now:
- Role models of the heroes’ e.g. in textbooks
- The beginning of biology by what we now consider as the core (and not by what now looks
exotic)
- What we no longer approve of is omitted from our heroes. E.g. Newton was also an
alchemist
- A lot less about the handicraft, the organisation of science, the societal context: ‘lone genius,
ahead of his time’
- Conceptual anachronisms. E.g. ‘Biology’ before c1800 (almost unavoidable!)
o Anachronism = chronologically inconsistency, misplaced in time
o Aristotle was our first biologist’ is a conceptual anachronism, biology the discipline
was not invented back then
Can historians show ‘how it really was’?:
- The sources are only partially present: ‘the archive’ is saved for a different purpose.
- All history (and all knowledge) is selective: a fraction of the complex events
- History is more than just facts: depends on what we want & can learn, the questions asked.
Hence some degree of presentism is unavoidable! There is always danger of bias.
Different ways to write history:
- Big thinkers, big theories and discoveries = history of scientific thinking
- Organisation of science, e.g. academies, libraries, financial support and patronage = history
of scientific institutions
- Science in relation to culture, world views, art, religion = intellectual history
- Science’s involvement in practices = trade, application, e.g. via medicine, agriculture or war =
social history of science (this course & diversity in science: styles, organisations, practices)
1.2 Greek heritage
Alexander the Great was a pupil of Aristotle. He had a profound effect on the world what would
ultimately create new opportunities for biology. He was a Roman general who declared war on the
Persians. He defeated Darius III at the battle of Issus with a brilliant cavalry manoeuvre, 333 BC. He
,conquered the entire middle East. When he died early in 323 BC he had no heir. He cut up everything
he conquered between his generals.
One of Alexander’s generals (Prolemaeus Soter) ruled over Egypt from Alexandria
o Great support for ‘science’:
i. Library of Alexandria: in the ‘house of the Muses’: ‘Museum’. Ca 500.000 – 700.000
papyrus scrolls
ii. The legendary Pharos lighthouse: and architectural wonder to support trade
iii. Medical knowledge: anatomy, dissection, even vivisection?
a. Herophilus (335-280BC): study of the nervous system, with brains as thought centre
(instead of the heart!)
iv. Hypatia: A female scientist-philosopher in Alexandria. Not much known:
some maths, astronomy, literature. A Christian mob accused her of
witchcraft and lynched her (415)
a. Great example for women in science, in 20 th c a symbol of
emancipation
b. Other representations of Hypathia:
i. Erotic witch
ii. Victem of barbaric abuse
iii. Emancipated freethinker, defender of freedom against
intolerance (nowadays)
30BC: Egypt incorporated into the Roman empire (after death of Cleopatra) Alexandrian
knowledge spreads through the Roman Empire, Rome becomes the metropolis
Roman science: Roman scholars emphasised practical knowledge instead of theoretical systems, and
made inventories of Hellenic knowledge:
- Dioscorides (c40-90): botanist and herbal medicine, army medic under Nero
- Pliny the Elder (23-79): summary of all knowledge in 37 books, ‘encyclopaedia’
- C. Celsus (25vC-50): ‘encyclopaedia’, with section on medicine (rediscovered 1420)
- D. Galen (Galenus, 129-c.200):
o Doctor/philosopher, educated in the Asclepius temple in Pergamon and in Alexandria
o Doctor of the gladiators in Pergamon, later became to doctor of the emperors and
also a Roman army doctor
o Problem: dissection was unacceptable, for religious reasons
‘Windows of the body’ d. Galen:
- Anatomic knowledge by: wounded gladiatiors (wound = ‘window’), section on monkeys and
pigs
- Describes blood vessels: dark, venous blood ‘from the liver’, light and arterial blood ‘from the
heart’. Described nervous system
- Continued to be medical authority until Vesalius (16 th century)
- His method of bloodletting even had influence until the 19 th c!
Galen followed the Greek theory of four ‘humours’ (humeuren): imbalances were seen as the root of
many afflictions, abandoned only in the 18/19 th century:
- Too much phlegm ‘phlegmatic’ - Too much yellow bile ‘choleric’
- Too much blood ‘sanguine’ - Too much black bile ‘melancholic’
If the fluids are in imbalance, you let out some
, After the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476) and decline of Alexandria, the focus on the Roman
Empire shifts to the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire where it survives (Constantinople, Eastern
Roman Empire). Some of the knowledge survives, but it clashes with religion etc.
Decline of the Hellenic heritage
- Greece’s culture supported study, e.g. Aristotle’s school, the ‘Lyceum’
- Lyceum was plundered under the Roman occupation (86 BC), but survived as eastern
Romans took over
- Last philosophy schools in Greece were shut down under the pressure of the Church in 5 th c.
- Library of Alexandria burned (by Bishop Theophilus in 391 in action against the pagans
and/or the Arabs in 642)
The work of Galen however, is passed on: After the fall of Rome, Galen’s work was preserved and
expanded on the Byzantine Empire. During the 7 th-8th century in Syria, his work was translated from
Greek into Arabic and elaborated.
Greek knowledge was translated to Arabic in the Islamic Empire, centred on the new
metropolis of Damascus, Syria (from 7-8C)
Science in Islam; Development continued on the basis of Greek texts:
- Ibn al-Haytham or ‘Alhazen’ (965-1039): experimental optics, astronomy
- Ibn-an-Nafis (1213-1288): dissections, metabolism, pulmonary circulation
- Avicenna (980-1037, Persia): Canon of Medicine: textbook use into the 18th c, also in the
West
Ca 14th c: puzzling decline of Islamic science. (possible reason: they found printing books bad due to
possible typos, this way they could not keep up)
Meanwhile in Europe the ‘Dark Ages’ when speaking about science. There weren’t a lot of books left
in Europe. A lot of knowledge had disappeared after the decline of the Roman Empire. E.g. concrete
had to be reinvented
Glimmers of hope?
- Cultural revivals: Carolingian 8/9th century (Charles the Great), 11-12th century cathedrals,
12th century bloom monasteries
- First universities: mostly for theology, philosophy; Paris c1160, Bologna 1088, Padua 1222,
Cambridge 1209, Oxford 1200
- Theology inspiring science: God might not intervene at any time, but created ‘laws’:
Emergence of the idea of the ‘laws of nature’ and individual responsibility
Theology and church sometimes helped the sciences
Christian versus Islam: the Crusades (1095-1291):
- Christian armies ‘fight the heathens’ and conquer Jerusalem.
- Almost illiterate fanatics from the West bc a rather refined culture with advanced knowledge
- E.g. contemporary Islamic documents complained about the roughness and stench of the
Franks, who never washed cultural biases and Islam superior feeling towards them
- Siege of Antioch (1097-8), ending in bloody massacre.
Real culture exchange only started after the violent Crusades
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