Table Of Contenta history of biology
A History of Biology
michel mor ange
translated by
teresa lavender fagan &
joseph muise
prince ton university press
princet on & oxford
En glish translation copyright © 2021 by Prince ton University Press
Originally published in French as Une histoire de la biologie © Éditions du
Seuil, 2016
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Morange, Michel, author.
Title: A history of biology / Michel Morange ; translated by Teresa
Lavender Fagan and Joseph Muise.
Other titles: histoire de la biologie. En glish
Description: Prince ton, NJ : Prince ton University Press, [2021] |
Originally published in French as Une histoire de la biologie by
Éditions du Seuil, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and
index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020035292 (print) | LCCN 2020035293 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780691175409 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780691188782 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Biology— History. | Life sciences— History.
Classification: LCC QH305 .M6713 2021 (print) | LCC QH305 (ebook) |
DDC 570– dc23
LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2020035292
LC ebook rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2020035293
British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available
Editorial: Ingrid Gnerlich and Arthur Werneck
Production Editorial: Kathleen Cioffi
Jacket Design: Heather Hansen
Production: Jacqueline Poirier
Publicity: Sara Henning- Stout and Katie Lewis
Copyeditor: Maia Vaswani
This book has been composed in Arno
Printed on acid- free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface xv
1 Ancient Greece and Rome 1
The Facts 1
The Birth of Biology 1
Overview of Ancient Greek and Roman
Biological Sciences 2
Hippocratic Medicine 3
Aristotle 4
Galen’s Physiology 8
Pliny the Elder’s Natu ral History 9
The Atomists 10
Historical Overview 11
The Role of Experimentation in Greek
Science and Particularly in Life Sciences 11
Anaximander and the Atomists: The Futile
Search for Pioneers 13
Con temporary Relevance 17
Mechanistic and Molecular Explanations 17
The Role of Analogy 18
v
vi Contents
The Beginnings of the Chain of Being 19
Pliny’s Legacy 20
Ever- Present Finalism 20
2 The Middle Ages and Arab- Muslim Science 22
The Facts 23
The Arab- Muslim World 23
The Middle Ages in the West 26
Historical Overview 28
Con temporary Relevance 31
Scientific Pro gress Is Not a Given 31
Less Obvious Contributions to the
Development of Science 32
3 The Re nais sance (Sixteenth Century) 33
The Facts 34
Pro gress in Anatomy and Depictions of the
Human Body 34
Books on Natu ral History 38
Alchemy in Medicine: From Paracelsus to
Van Helmont 41
Historical Overview 45
A Fascination with Dissections 45
The Role of Alchemy 46
Changes in the Social Structure of Science 47
Con temporary Relevance 48
Finding the Right Distance from the Past 48
Contents vii
New Techniques Bring New Sources of Error 50
Aging as a Form of Poisoning 50
4 The Age of Classicism (Seventeenth Century) 52
The Facts 52
The Discovery of Circulation 52
The Development of Quantitative
Experiments 57
The Invention of the Microscope and Its
Consequences 63
Historical Overview 67
The Not- So- Obvious Case of Circulation 67
The Mechanistic Model of Life and Its
Limitations 67
The Incomprehensible Theory of
Preformationism 69
Invisible and Indirect Changes 70
Con temporary Relevance 72
The Machines in Front of Us 72
Vestiges of Preformation Theory 72
Accepting the Plurality of Approaches
in Biology 73
Translational Medicine Is Not New 73
5 The Enlightenment (Eigh teenth Century) 75
The Facts 75
Vitalism 75
Classification: Linnaeus versus Buffon 78
viii Contents
Reproductive Physiology 86
The Role of Breathing Becomes Clear 94
Historical Overview 97
Variations on Vitalism 97
Classification versus Evolution 99
Classifying Humans 99
Priestley and Lavoisier: Only the First Step 100
Con temporary Relevance 101
A Natur al Classification? 101
Comparing Plants and Animals 102
Maupertuis, the Father of Self- Organization? 103
6 The Nineteenth Century (Part I): Embryology,
Cell Biology, Microbiology, and Physiology 105
The Facts 106
Embryology Becomes an Established
Discipline 106
The Emergence of Cell Theory 109
The Rise of Germ Theory 120
Physiology’s Golden Age 131
Historical Overview 143
The Roots of Cell Theory 143
Scholars Trapped by Their Own Philosophical
Ideas? 145
The Tension between Chemical Explanations
and Structural Models 150
Was Embryology Holding Out for Evolution? 151
1859: A Remarkable Year 151
Contents ix
Con temporary Relevance 152
The Disappearance of Traditional Disciplines
in Biology 153
The Endogenous or Exogenous Origins of
Diseases 153
The Debate on Ce re bral Localization 155
7 The Nineteenth C entury (Part II): The Theory
of Evolution, the Theory of Heredity,
and Ecol ogy 157
The Facts 157
Lamarck: An Early Version of the Theory
of Evolution 157
The Contribution of Georges Cuvier 163
The Second Wave of Transformism: Darwin 169
The Theory of Heredity 177
The Reception of Darwin’s Theory and the
Eclipse of Darwinism 188
From Biogeography to Ecol ogy 199
Historical Overview 203
A Moving History 203
The Birth of a Science of Heredity 204
Biology: A Comparative Science, according to
Auguste Comte 205
Darwinism and Ecol ogy: A Complex
Relationship 206
Biogeography 208
The Epistemological Originality of the
Darwinian Model of Natu ral Se lection 209
