- Evolution:
- as a process
- as a theory
- in relation to other sciences and cultural trends
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Traditions of Greek and Roman thought:
- Why Greek & Roman? What about China, India, etc.?
- The Greek nature-philosophers:
- Thales (of Miletus, c.620-546 BCE):
"Lover of wisdom" (ϕιλοδοϕος);
calculated solstices, equinioxes; predicted eclipse of 585 BCE;
arche=water; earth floats on water; legends: fell into well; olive presses.
- Anaximander (of Miletus, c.610-546 BCE):
Apeiron (απειρον) and two forces (love, hate); separation of opposites;
cycles of creation and destruction; life originated from seabed; humans originated from fish
- Parmenides (of Elea in Sicily, fl. 500 BCE):
Nothing comes from nothing; no void exists;
"that which exists" is unchanging
because it cannot be destroyed or become nothingness.
- Heracleitos=Heraclitus (of Ephesus in Ionia, c.535-475 BCE):
"All is flux"; "You cannot step into the same river twice"; fire [?energy] in everything;
"drunkenness damages the soul; a virtuous life keeps the soul dry and intelligent"
- Empedocles (of Acragas=Agrigentum in Sicily, c.490-430 BCE):
Four elements (earth, water, air, fire) and 2 forces;
cyclical history: age of strife=chaos, struggle with love (produces life), age of harmony and pure love, struggle with hate, dissolution into strife and chaos, etc.
- Leucippus (of Miletus, fl. 5th cent BCE): originated atomic theory
- Democritus (of Abdera in Thrace, 460-370 BCE):
details of atomic theory; sheep on hillside analogy.
- (eclipse of this tradition)
- Epicurus (born Athens but expelled to Samos, 341-270 BCE):
Revived naturalist tradition; taught followers to seek pleasure (freedom from pain and fear) by practicing moderatioon in all things.
- Lucretius (Roman, 99-55 BCE): Summarized all the foregoing ideas.
Lucretius quote
The classical tradition (mostly Athenian at first):
- Protagoras (c.490-420 BCE) and the sophists:
Emphasis on human affairs (law courts), argumentation. "Man is the measure of all things...."
Socrates (470-399 BCE):
Rejected ethical relativism; emphasis on logical and ethical standards
Plato (c.428-347 BCE): - the eidos (ειδος)
and the theory of forms ("theory of ideas")
Aristotle (384-322 BCE): - Extension of the theory of forms; essentialism
- Genus and species
- Causation and teleology
Four types of cause
Hierarchy of "souls"
(psyche, ψϒχή)
Theophrastus (c.371-287 BCE)
(eclipse of this tradition)
(Medieval times — eclipse of learning in general)
Revival under Christianity: Augustine, Aquinas
Great Chain of Being (Scala naturae)
Pope
Descriptive botany in northern Europe (see below)
Linnaeus— codification of the classical tradition in biology
Science in the Renaissance:
- Anatomy and art in southern Europe: Michelangelo, Vesalius
Examples
Descriptive botany,
pharmacology, and art in northern Europe
Examples
Printing and Protestantism
Galileo, Newton, and astronomy
Formation of scientific communities, esp. the Royal Society
Environmentalism (esp. in France):
- Renaissance explorers and geographers
- Enlightenment ("Age of Reason") and the French Revolution (1789)
- Alexander von Humboldt
Adaptation: Describing it; Explaining it
Environmental determinism — but it needs a mechanism
- Buffon and migration
- Maupertius
- Lamarck:
"La Marche de la Nature";
Theory of use and disuse
- Geoffroy (Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire)
- Erasmus Darwin
- Environmentalism in literature (Zola, Dickens, etc.)
Divine benevolence and "Natural theology" (mostly in England):
Geology before Darwin:
- Nature of fossils: Xenophanes, Herodotus, DaVinci, Steno
- Age of the Earth
; de Maillet and "Telliamed"
- Catastrophism (from ancient Greece to Werner and Cuvier)
Ray, Werner, Smith,
Cuvier, Sedgwick
- Uniformitarianism
Cuvier and comparative anatomy
German romanticism and Naturphilosophie:
- Oken; literary influences
- Bauplan theory & homology: Goethe ("Alles ist Blatt"),
Owen and homology
- Embryology: Meckel, Von Baer, Haeckel
- Cell theory: Schleiden, Schwann, Virchow
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