The History of Biological Science

8/3/2019 The History of Biological Science

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The History of

biological science

Made by:

Xeny Dubrovina

Section 412


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Origin of biology

The term biology in its modernsense was introduced independent-ly in the beginning of the 19century by:

Karl Friedrich Burdach (1800); Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus

(1802);

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1802).

The word itself appears in the titleof Michael Christoph Hanov's

paper published in1766.


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What was before it?

Naturalhistory

Naturalphilosophy

Botany,Zoology


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Prehistoric development

Human knowledge of biology began withprehistoric people and their experiences withedible vs. inedible, or even poisonous plants,habits of animals and how best to capture

them, etc. This information was verballypassed on to the next generation. People knewabout medicinal and poisonous plants andknew that a heartbeat meant that someone orsome animal was alive. They knew that babies

were in some way connected with sexualintercourse.

Early on, much basic knowledge had beenaccumulated by the Egyptians andBabylonians. They began writing down thisknowledge to preserve it and communicate it

to those who followed after.


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First branches

Biology

Botany

Zoology

Medicine


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Anaximander, a Greek philosopherwho lived from 611 to 546 BC, iscredited with the first written

work on natural science, a classicalpoem entitled On Nature. In thispoem, he presented what may bethe first written theory of

evolution. He said that in thebeginning there was a fish-likecreature with scales etc. that arosein and lived in the world ocean. Assome of these advanced, they movedonto land, shed their scalycoverings, and became the firsthumans.


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Hippocrates lived from about 400 to300 BC. One of the things for whichhe is remembered is his theory thatthe human body was composed ofthe four elements (earth, air, fire,

water) plus four fluids or humors:sanguis or blood, produced by theheart; choler or yellow bile,produced by the liver; melancholia

or black bile, produced by thespleen; and phlegma or phlegm,produced by the brain, whichcorresponded with these.


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The father of biology

Aristotle, one of Platos most famouspupils, lived from 343 to 322 BC, andcontributed much to what we nowconsider to be in the realm of biology.His refinements of the systems of

animal and plant classification haveprofoundly influenced the course ofbiological thought ever since. Hisclassification system included what hecalled the Scala naturae, the scale ofnature. He said that all organisms arearranged in a hierarchy from simplestto most complex.


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The Hierarchical Scale the Great Chain of Being

according to Aristotle

extended further by various Religions


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Biology did nor fare well during

the Middle Ages. The Arabs were

more interested in astronomy

and chemistry and neglected the

study of biology. The Western

world was absorbed withChristianity, so science in general

was not advanced. It is not until

the Renaissance that the study ofbiology was reawakened.


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In the early 17th century, the micro-world of biology was just beginning toopen up. A few lensmakers and natural

philosophers had been creating crudemicroscopes since the late 16thcentury, and Robert Hooke publishedthe paper based on observations withhis own compound microscope in 1665.

But it was not until Antony vanLeeuwenhoek's dramatic improvementsin lensmaking beginning in the 1670sultimately producing up to 200-foldmagnification with a single lensthatscholars discovered spermatozoa,bacteria, infusoria and the sheerstrangeness and diversity ofmicroscopic life.


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Carolus Linnaeus published a basictaxonomy for the natural world in 1735(variations of which have been in useever since), and in the 1750s introducedscientific names for all his species.While Linnaeus conceived of species asunchanging parts of a designedhierarchy, the other great naturalist ofthe 18th century, Georges-LouisLeclerc, Comte de Buffon, treatedspecies as artificial categories andliving forms as malleableeven

suggesting the possibility of commondescent. Though he was opposed toevolution, Buffon is a key figure in thehistory of evolutionary thought.


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Systema naturae

Species

Genus (pl = genera)

Family

Order

Class

Phylum (pl. = phyla)Kingdom


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Biology

Cytology

Taxonomy

EvolutionTheory


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Evolution theory

In 1859, Charles Darwinpublished The Origin ofSpecies by Means of Natural Selection or thePreservation of Favoured Races in the Strugglefor Life, more commonly known as The Origin ofSpecies. He made 4 main point there:

individuals, even siblings, in a population vary

(there is variation), these variations can be passed to offspring (areinherited), (from Malthus) more offspring are produced than

the environment can support, so there iscompetition for resources, and those individuals whose characteristics make them

best suited to the environment live and reproduceand have more offspring (survival of the fittest).


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In 1865, Gregor Mendel, anAustrian monk, published a

paper on genetics that earnedhim the nickname the Father of

Modern Genetics. It wasnt until

1900 that a couple of botanistsworking on other research

rediscovered his work.


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In 1928, while studying influenza,Alexander Fleming noticed that mouldhad developed accidentally on a set of

culture dishes being used to grow thestaphylococci germ. The mould hadcreated a bacteria-free circle arounditself. Fleming experimented furtherand named the active substance

penicillin. It was two other scientistshowever, Australian Howard Floreyand Ernst Chain, a refugee from NaziGermany, who developed penicillinfurther so that it could be produced as

a drug. At first supplies of penicillinwere very limited, but by the 1940s itwas being mass-produced by theAmerican drugs industry.


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In 1936, Alexander IvanovichOparin, a Russian scientist,published The Origins of Life, in

which he described hypotheticalconditions which he felt wouldhave been necessary for life to

first come into existence on earlyEarth. This included anatmosphere of methane,ammonia, and other gases, much

volcanic activity, lightening, andwarm soil and watertemperatures.


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In 1953, James Watson, anAmerican, and Francis Crick, anEnglishman, published a paper inwhich they proposed ahypothetical structure for DNAwhich also showed how DNA

could be the genetic codematerial and suggested a meanswhereby it could replicate itself.Subsequent chemical analyses of

DNA have upheld theirprediction.


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BiologyZoology

Botany

Anatomy

Morphology

Histology

Physiology

Embriology

Cytology

Taxonomy

Ecology

Genetics


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Documents

The History of Biological Science