Aristotle to Zoos: Philosophical Dictionary of Biology

328 Pages·1984·10.641 MB·English

by  Medawar, P. B., Medawar, J. S.

A
e RISTOTLE
to^oos

RISTOTLE
TO '"Zoos
A Philosophical
Dictionary of Biology
P. B. MEDAWAR
& J. S. MEDAWAR
Weidenfeld and Nicolson London
Copyright © 1984 by P. B. Medawar and J. S. Medawar
First published in Great Britain in 1984 by
George Weidenfeld & Nicolson Limited
91 Clapham High Street London SW4 7ta
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may
be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of
the copyright owner.
isbn 0297 782975
Printed in Great Britain by
Redwood Burn Limited
Trowbridge
Preface
Harvard University Press, with Peter Gay’s polished 1962 trans¬
lation of Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary as bait, invited us to
embark upon a “philosophical dictionary of biology”; but where
Voltaire had taken the whole world for his canvas, we were to
confine ourselves to biological topics—retaining Voltaire’s format
and if possible some of his esprit. We hope our Aristotle to Zoos title
does not promise, by its A to Z format, a completeness of treat¬
ment to which we did not aspire.
This work is philosophical only in the cozy domestic sense of
being leisurely, relaxed, and reflective. There is no philosophy in
it of a kind that could be thought to exemplify the Naturphilosophie
so popular in Germany in the nineteenth century—a form of sci¬
entific belles lettres with a truly dismal track record for making
sense of the puzzles in which biology abounds.
It was to Naturphilosophie that we owed the supposed existence
of the very simplest and most remotely primeval of all orga¬
nisms—the Monera—consisting only, as the prevailing nature-phi¬
losophy required, of naked protoplasm; it was to nature-philoso¬
phy, too, that we owed the conception that the skull of vertebrates
is formed essentially by the fusion and adaptive remodeling of the
anteriormost vertebrae. What a shame that Thomas Henry Hux¬
ley, whose expert hatchet job on this theory of the skull was the
subject of a famous Croonian Lecture at the Royal Society in
1858, should have been so far taken in by Ernst Haeckel’s Monera
as to have discovered a specimen of the group in a deep Atlantic
dredging.
The spirit of Naturphilosophie, moreover, shines out of the mis¬
conception that cancer cells are essentially embryonic cells which,
having escaped the discipline of differentiation, persist anoma¬
lously into adult life, later taking wing, so to speak, as malignant
growths. All experienced biologists will share our anxiety lest the
PREFACE
“philosophical” element in our dictionary should be construed in
this deeply erroneous sense.
On the other hand, this is not a reference book and not a dic¬
tionary of explanations and definitions. T here is no need for such
a work so long as the Penguin Dictionary of Biology, a little master¬
piece of expert knowledge and skillful writing, is still in print.
And it has reached its tenth edition in 1983. We include a number
of definitions, it is true, if only to make an evolutionary connec¬
tion with a dictionary of a sort more ordinary than Voltaire’s, but
these definitions are grouped under the subjects upon which they
bear. Personal taste turns us from the major innovation of the En¬
cyclopaedia Britannica of 1771: the inclusion of very lengthy general
articles dealing with whole sciences, to which seekers after partic¬
ular information are repeatedly referred. We feel that anyone
who, curious or fearful, looks up spina bifida wants to be told
what it is and does not wish to be referred to a treatise on embry¬
ology.
Perhaps the most famous passage in Voltaire’s dictionary
comes in the chapter “Tout est bien,” which contains the black
theodicy beginning “Either God wishes to expunge the evil from
this world and cannot; or he can and does not wish to; or he nei¬
ther wishes to nor can.” The entire passage was quoted by Vol¬
taire from a treatise concerning the wrath of God by the fourth-
century church father Lactantius, who professed to have had it
from Epicurus. Voltaire’s contemptuous dismissal of Lactantius’
attempt to controvert the implications of this passage makes us
think that Voltaire would have had little patience with the kind
of theological humbug brought to the attention of the world by
the Reverend Lord Bridgewater, whose persuasions we shall con¬
sider in our text.
If the present book is not for reference and not for looking up
things, what—and whom—is it for? It is for browsing. For the
best results the reader must abstain resolutely from learning any¬
thing he or she does not want to know and must exercise at all
times the reader’s liberating privilege—skipping.
Among the educated audience we envisage might be biologists,
sociologists, psychologists, and other members of that increasing
population of reflective people who see in biology the science most
relevant to the understanding and melioration of the human con¬
dition.
VI