History of Biology lecture summaries
Lecture 1. Why and How?
Beginning of biology
Aristotle (384-322BC):
o Species classification, embryo studies, animal dissections
China:
o Herbs and medicine in the 1st millennium BC
o Mathematics, astronomy, technology
Mesopotamia
o Agriculture (5000BC), astronomy
Egypt
o Mummification (3300BC)
History is judged by what we know. Can history show how it really was? a sources only partially
present, history is selective.
Alexander the Great was a student of Aristotle. After Alexander’s death, his huge empire is divided
among three of his generals.
Ptolemaeus Soter (367-283BC): rules Egypt from Alexandria
o Library of Alexandria: around 600.000 books
o Pharos Lighthouse: architectural wonder
o Medical knowledge
Herophilus (335-280BC) studied the nervous system with the brain as thought centre.
Hypatia. A scientist-philosopher in Alexandria, one of few women scientists. She was accused of
witchcraft and lynched. She was a great example for women in science and a symbol of
emancipation.
After Alexanders death the centre shifted from Greece to Alexandria. After Egypt incorporated the
roman empire in 30BC, the knowledge centre shifted to Rome. Roman scholars emphasised practical
knowledge.
Galen (129-c.200). A doctor/philosopher educated in Pergamon and Alexandria. He was a Roman
army doctor who gained anatomic knowledge by studying wounded gladiators, monkeys and pigs.
Galen continued to have medical authority until Vesalius in the 16th-19th c.
Galen followed the theory of the four humours: imbalances were seen as the root of many afflictions.
Galen could remain authority for such a long time, because:
Authority of classical texts was unquestioned
Difficult to gather a corpse
Dissections were conducted while reading from Galen
Aristotle’s school (the Lyceum) was plundered under the Roman occupation (86BC). The library of
Alexandria was burned. After the fall of Rome, however, Galen’s work was preserved.
Christians versus Islam: the Crusades (1095-1291).
Christian armies conquer Jerusalem. Only after the Crusades, real cultural exchange started.
The Greek knowledge passed from Greek, to Alexandria, to the Roman Empire, to the Byzantine
Empire, to this Islamic world (Damascus). Al Andalus passed it on from the Islamic world to Islamic
Spain in the 8th c. It was then passed on to Northern Italy in the Renaissance (14th c.).
,The Renaissance (1350-1600)
Rebirth of the classical world and glorification of the classics.
Empiricism: first half of the 16th c. Expansions of botany, more empirical detail in anatomy
and the first elements of experiments.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). Secret dissections, driven by art and science.
Paracelsus (1493-1544). A swiss doctor, botanist and alchemist interested in poison. He believed only
the dose was important for a poison. He attacked tradition and burned Galen’s books.
Andreas Vesalius (1914-1564). He conducted public dissections in Padau, while not reading from
Galen showing the limitation of Galen’s anatomy. Because there was a constant lack of bodies, he
stole corpses.
Scientific revolution
Galileo, Huygens, Newton, Hooke, Boyle, Descartes.
The Royal Society of England in 1660.
William Harvey (1578-1657) was one of the heroes of the scientific revolution: he described
the human blood circulation (which corrected Galen).
Robert Knox (1791-1862) was a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He bought bodies
from William Burke and William Hare. Initially they stole them from the morgue, but they
began murdering to get more bodies.
Lecture 2. Classification
There are different ways of doing science with varying:
Ideals and goals for example elegance in math.
Ways to find knowledge for example calculation vs an experiment.
Ways to organise knowledge for example taxonomy vs formula.
Conceptions of valid knowledge for example law vs statistics.
Typical applications for example medicine
Style is more than just a method, it expresses what it is that you want to achieve, what the ideals and
the goals are. Often different styles coexisted in biology, but the dominance of certain styles changed
throughout history.
The experimental style of the scientific revolution Harvey studying the circulation of blood or the
air pump made by Boyle.
In the 17th century, people started to think of places where you could perform experiments under
controlled conditions. That is completely different from doing science in the taxonomic way. That
science is really about observation, collecting and bringing things together. The knowledge is not
presented in laws but in books. The typical place for doing taxonomical research is not the
laboratory, but the field. After being in the field you bring your things together n the botanical
garden. So, for a long time the place to study biology was not the laboratory, but the botanic
gardens.
Examples of research styles:
Experimental style getting knowledge through experiments ‘manipulation’ of nature manipulation’ of nature
was a symbol of the scientific revolution.
Deductive style knowledge derived from first principles, by reasoning important in
maths and dominant among the Greeks.
, Analytic style nature unravelled to basic elements called ‘manipulation’ of nature building blocks’ for example
the analysis in chemistry.
Statistical style, evolutionary style, etc.
The exact list of historians vary, but what’s crucial is the diversity in biology and its sciences. There is
not just one way of doing biology.
The taxonomic style:
The ideal is to order the world.
The ways of doing that is by collecting specimens and going out in the world, often with
expeditions (for example The Beagle and Captain Cook).
After going on expeditions, the items are brought together in collections. This often happens
at places like botanic gardens, herbariums, natural history museums and zoos.
Validity of the knowledge from the collections is dependant on how accurate, how relevant
or useful the classification is.
Has important applications in medicine and agriculture.
Natural history museum in London one of the most important collections of biological specimens.
For the development of natural history biology, museums and botanic gardens were more important
than laboratories. They still do a lot of research in the London natural history museum. It has still
examples of how they displayed collections back in history namely in glass cases. Specimens could be
compared in those glass cases.
There were often collections of collectors present in the places they studied taxonomy. Collections
have a practical aspect to them too. It is important to think about where to put stuff whenever a
collection becomes bigger and bigger.
Curiosity cabinets became important from about the end of the 16 th century but especially in the 17 th
century. Especially wealthy people would start to collect stuff from all over the world just to show
off. They would contain books, minerals, birds, etc. These people would invite people to look at the
collections and show of what they got. These things were often stored in curiosity cabinets. They
could be an actual cabinet, but also a room. These were often messy. A stuffed crocodile was
something really good to have, because many could not afford.
Hans Sloane had a particularly large collection.
British physician of nobility, so he was a prominent person.
He studied medicine.
He secured himself a job as the private physician of the royal family that means you are
not particularly busy, so he had a lot of time. This meant he could collect stuff in his free
time.
Eventually he became an important person in science as well, because he became secretary
of the royal society and was the editor of the journal of this organisation.
Before he got to the royalties, he was physician of the governor of Jamaica. In Jamaica he
started to collect stuff. There he discovered the cacao plant. Due to this, he also discovered
the chocolate and chocolate milk.
His interest for plants and herbs were combined with his interest in medicine. This is
something typical for the botanists at that time.
He came back from Jamaica and collected everything in his house in central London. There he started
to buy other people’s collections. Before he knew it, his house was becoming too small. He moved to
another house to keep all his stuff until he died. When he died, people had problems with where to
put his gigantic collection. The parliament bought it and turned the collection into a museum. That
museum is now called the British museum. These collections were especially for the nobility not for
general people, so if you wanted to get in the British museum, you needed a letter of
Lecture 1. Why and How?
Beginning of biology
Aristotle (384-322BC):
o Species classification, embryo studies, animal dissections
China:
o Herbs and medicine in the 1st millennium BC
o Mathematics, astronomy, technology
Mesopotamia
o Agriculture (5000BC), astronomy
Egypt
o Mummification (3300BC)
History is judged by what we know. Can history show how it really was? a sources only partially
present, history is selective.
Alexander the Great was a student of Aristotle. After Alexander’s death, his huge empire is divided
among three of his generals.
Ptolemaeus Soter (367-283BC): rules Egypt from Alexandria
o Library of Alexandria: around 600.000 books
o Pharos Lighthouse: architectural wonder
o Medical knowledge
Herophilus (335-280BC) studied the nervous system with the brain as thought centre.
Hypatia. A scientist-philosopher in Alexandria, one of few women scientists. She was accused of
witchcraft and lynched. She was a great example for women in science and a symbol of
emancipation.
After Alexanders death the centre shifted from Greece to Alexandria. After Egypt incorporated the
roman empire in 30BC, the knowledge centre shifted to Rome. Roman scholars emphasised practical
knowledge.
Galen (129-c.200). A doctor/philosopher educated in Pergamon and Alexandria. He was a Roman
army doctor who gained anatomic knowledge by studying wounded gladiators, monkeys and pigs.
Galen continued to have medical authority until Vesalius in the 16th-19th c.
Galen followed the theory of the four humours: imbalances were seen as the root of many afflictions.
Galen could remain authority for such a long time, because:
Authority of classical texts was unquestioned
Difficult to gather a corpse
Dissections were conducted while reading from Galen
Aristotle’s school (the Lyceum) was plundered under the Roman occupation (86BC). The library of
Alexandria was burned. After the fall of Rome, however, Galen’s work was preserved.
Christians versus Islam: the Crusades (1095-1291).
Christian armies conquer Jerusalem. Only after the Crusades, real cultural exchange started.
The Greek knowledge passed from Greek, to Alexandria, to the Roman Empire, to the Byzantine
Empire, to this Islamic world (Damascus). Al Andalus passed it on from the Islamic world to Islamic
Spain in the 8th c. It was then passed on to Northern Italy in the Renaissance (14th c.).
,The Renaissance (1350-1600)
Rebirth of the classical world and glorification of the classics.
Empiricism: first half of the 16th c. Expansions of botany, more empirical detail in anatomy
and the first elements of experiments.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). Secret dissections, driven by art and science.
Paracelsus (1493-1544). A swiss doctor, botanist and alchemist interested in poison. He believed only
the dose was important for a poison. He attacked tradition and burned Galen’s books.
Andreas Vesalius (1914-1564). He conducted public dissections in Padau, while not reading from
Galen showing the limitation of Galen’s anatomy. Because there was a constant lack of bodies, he
stole corpses.
Scientific revolution
Galileo, Huygens, Newton, Hooke, Boyle, Descartes.
The Royal Society of England in 1660.
William Harvey (1578-1657) was one of the heroes of the scientific revolution: he described
the human blood circulation (which corrected Galen).
Robert Knox (1791-1862) was a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He bought bodies
from William Burke and William Hare. Initially they stole them from the morgue, but they
began murdering to get more bodies.
Lecture 2. Classification
There are different ways of doing science with varying:
Ideals and goals for example elegance in math.
Ways to find knowledge for example calculation vs an experiment.
Ways to organise knowledge for example taxonomy vs formula.
Conceptions of valid knowledge for example law vs statistics.
Typical applications for example medicine
Style is more than just a method, it expresses what it is that you want to achieve, what the ideals and
the goals are. Often different styles coexisted in biology, but the dominance of certain styles changed
throughout history.
The experimental style of the scientific revolution Harvey studying the circulation of blood or the
air pump made by Boyle.
In the 17th century, people started to think of places where you could perform experiments under
controlled conditions. That is completely different from doing science in the taxonomic way. That
science is really about observation, collecting and bringing things together. The knowledge is not
presented in laws but in books. The typical place for doing taxonomical research is not the
laboratory, but the field. After being in the field you bring your things together n the botanical
garden. So, for a long time the place to study biology was not the laboratory, but the botanic
gardens.
Examples of research styles:
Experimental style getting knowledge through experiments ‘manipulation’ of nature manipulation’ of nature
was a symbol of the scientific revolution.
Deductive style knowledge derived from first principles, by reasoning important in
maths and dominant among the Greeks.
, Analytic style nature unravelled to basic elements called ‘manipulation’ of nature building blocks’ for example
the analysis in chemistry.
Statistical style, evolutionary style, etc.
The exact list of historians vary, but what’s crucial is the diversity in biology and its sciences. There is
not just one way of doing biology.
The taxonomic style:
The ideal is to order the world.
The ways of doing that is by collecting specimens and going out in the world, often with
expeditions (for example The Beagle and Captain Cook).
After going on expeditions, the items are brought together in collections. This often happens
at places like botanic gardens, herbariums, natural history museums and zoos.
Validity of the knowledge from the collections is dependant on how accurate, how relevant
or useful the classification is.
Has important applications in medicine and agriculture.
Natural history museum in London one of the most important collections of biological specimens.
For the development of natural history biology, museums and botanic gardens were more important
than laboratories. They still do a lot of research in the London natural history museum. It has still
examples of how they displayed collections back in history namely in glass cases. Specimens could be
compared in those glass cases.
There were often collections of collectors present in the places they studied taxonomy. Collections
have a practical aspect to them too. It is important to think about where to put stuff whenever a
collection becomes bigger and bigger.
Curiosity cabinets became important from about the end of the 16 th century but especially in the 17 th
century. Especially wealthy people would start to collect stuff from all over the world just to show
off. They would contain books, minerals, birds, etc. These people would invite people to look at the
collections and show of what they got. These things were often stored in curiosity cabinets. They
could be an actual cabinet, but also a room. These were often messy. A stuffed crocodile was
something really good to have, because many could not afford.
Hans Sloane had a particularly large collection.
British physician of nobility, so he was a prominent person.
He studied medicine.
He secured himself a job as the private physician of the royal family that means you are
not particularly busy, so he had a lot of time. This meant he could collect stuff in his free
time.
Eventually he became an important person in science as well, because he became secretary
of the royal society and was the editor of the journal of this organisation.
Before he got to the royalties, he was physician of the governor of Jamaica. In Jamaica he
started to collect stuff. There he discovered the cacao plant. Due to this, he also discovered
the chocolate and chocolate milk.
His interest for plants and herbs were combined with his interest in medicine. This is
something typical for the botanists at that time.
He came back from Jamaica and collected everything in his house in central London. There he started
to buy other people’s collections. Before he knew it, his house was becoming too small. He moved to
another house to keep all his stuff until he died. When he died, people had problems with where to
put his gigantic collection. The parliament bought it and turned the collection into a museum. That
museum is now called the British museum. These collections were especially for the nobility not for
general people, so if you wanted to get in the British museum, you needed a letter of
