BIO1130

Lecture 1
History Of Biology: Before Darwin

Predarwinian and natural science

-400 BCE-450BCE: Greek and roman ages

- Hippocrates (460-370 BCE) : Known for gathering together all the written knowledge of the human condition and biology, form people who were healing people or giving people surgery. Put them all together in something called the Hippocratic corpus -large written record of human biology. This then went on to be called the study of medicine.

-Aristotle: Looked at diers arry of organisms and tried to find patters and organize them called the Scala Natural. Human species was at the top “perfect specimen” then mammals- whales etc. etc. (refer to slides for illustration). This was not challenged for 2000 years
Classifications: collecting a large number of objects and putting them in an order (organization).
Taxonomy: When you take a system and apply a rule to it . Eg. When you organize a stamp collection by country.
Folk taxonomy: Classifying organisms and objects organizing them by everyday criteria
Artificial taxonomy: arrangement based on superficial characters, and not expressing the true natural relations species

-Theophrastus: Creates a compendium and uses the reproduction mechanisms of plants to organize them
Ancient father of taxonomy and classification

-450-16th Century: medieval ages
-16th-18th century: renaissance and the scientific revolution

Four ages of sand:
-First- when glass could be ground and shaped to make the TELESCOPE