From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia.
The history of biology
dates as far back as the rise of
various civilization as classic
philosophers did their own ways of
biology as a system of
understanding life.
The term
Formed by combining the
Greek βίος (bios), meaning
'life', and λόγος (logos), meaning
'study of', the word "biology" in
its modern sense seems to have
been introduced independently by
Karl Friedrich Burdach in
1800,
Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus
(Biologie oder Philosophie der
lebenden Natur, 1802) and by
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (Hydrogéologie,
1802). The word itself appears in
the title of Volume 3 of
Michael Christoph Hanov's
Philosophiae naturalis sive
physicae dogmaticae: Geologia,
biologia, phytologia generalis et
dendrologia, published in
1766.
Biology in ancient time
From the very beginning people
must have had knowledge about
plants and animals that made them
capable in hunting and
agriculture. For example, they had
to know how to avoid poisonous
plants and how to treat animals.
Biology hence predates the written
history of humans.
Ancient
Oriental people knew about the
pollination of
date palm from a very early
point of time. In
Mesopotamia they knew that
pollen could be used in
fertilizing plants. A business
contract of the
Hammurabi period (c. 1800 BC)
mentions flowers of the date palm
as an article of commerce.
In
India texts described some
aspects of bird life. In
Egypt the mathamorphosis of
insects and frogs was described.
Egyptians and babylonians also
knew of anatomy and physiology in
various forms. In
Mesopotamia, animals were
sometimes kept in what can be
described as the first zoological
gardens.
However, superstitious thoughts
often blended with real knowledge.
In
Babylon and
Assyria organs of animals were
used in prediction, and in Egypt
medicine included a large amount
of mysticism.
In the Graeco-Roman world
scholars became more interested in
rationalist methods.
Aristotle is one of the most
prolific natural philosophers of
antiquity. He made countless
observations of nature, especially
the
habits and
attributes of
plants and
animals in the world around
him, which he devoted considerable
attention to
categorizing.
In ancient Rome,
Pliny the Elder is known for
his knowledge of plants and
nature. Later, Claudius
Galen became a pioneer in
medicine and anatomy.
Medieval biology
This time is often called the
dark age of biology. However, some
people who dealt with medical
issues, was showing their interest
in plants and animals as well. In
the Arab world, science about
nature was kept. Many of the greek
works was translated and the
knowledge of Aristotle was used.
Of the Arab biologists, al-Jahiz,
who died about 868, is
particularly noteworthy. He wrote
Kitab al Hayawan (Book
of animals). In the 1200's the
german scholar named
Albertus Magnus (He was by the
way the teacher of
Thomas Aquinas) wrote De
vegetabilibus, seven books,
and De animalibus, 26
books. He was particularly
interested in plant propagation
and reproduction and discussed in
some detail the sexuality of
plants and animals.
The Renaissance
Interestingly, as many virtual
artists was interested in the
bodies of animals and humans, they
studied the physiology in detailes.
Such comparisations as that
between a horse leg and a human
leg were made.
Otto Brunfels,
Hieronymus Bock and
Leonhard Fuchs were three men
who wrote books about wild plants;
they have been referd to as the
german fathers of botany. Books
about animals were also made, such
as those by
Conrad Gesner, illustrated by
among others
Albrecht Dürer. Inaccurate
knowledge, often a gross one, was
still in effect, and in many cases
old legends of the greeks was
preserved.
Modern biology
As technology went forward, so
did the science. The predecessors
of the microscope were constructed
in the following time.
Antony van Leeuwenhoek
(1632-1723) investigated blood
this way. On this point of time,
people also learned to know
sperm cells, although strange
thoughts about their functions
often was spread. Systematizing
and classifying dominated biology
throughout much of the 17th and
18th centuries, the most famous
person here is
Carl von Linné (1707-1778). He
it was inventing the
taxonomy system with
scientific names in latin. The
long-held idea that living
organisms could originate from
nonliving matter (spontaneous
generation) began to crumble. It
was finally disproved by
Louis Pasteur.
In the
19th century the area of
genetics developed, when the
Austrian
monk
Gregor Mendel formulated his
laws of inheritance published
in
1866. However, his work was
not recognized for a few decades
afterward. The other important
scientist that influenced this
field was the British scientist
Charles Darwin, who was
encouraged to publish his thoughts
in the field by the independent
work of
Alfred Russel Wallace.
Darwin's famous work
On the Origin of Species (1859)
describes
natural selection, the primary
mechanism for
evolution. Implications of
evolution on fields outside of
pure science have led to both
opposition and support from
different parts of society.
By
1953
James Watson and
Francis Crick clarified the
basic structure of
DNA, the
genetic material for
expressing
life in all of its forms3.
After the success of the
discovery of the structure of DNA,
Crick turned to the problem of
consciousness; in the
meantime, the studies of
developmental biology came to
the fore as
unsolved problems.
Clones of both
plants and
animals were attempted, with
some success, but with attendant
ethical questions. In
particular,
totipotent stem cells have
come to be recognized as a
fundamental object of study for
the understanding of developmental
biology, and for medical
therapies.
See also
Notes
Note 3:
James D. Watson and Francis H.
Crick. "Letters to Nature:
Molecular structure of Nucleic
Acid." Nature 171,
737–738 (1953).. Additional
information about this famous
journal article is at this
Wikipedia page:
Molecular structure of Nucleic
Acids.
