By Ernst Mayr
Synopsis
No one during this century will speak with larger authority on the progress of ideas in biology than Max Ernst Mayr. And no book has ever established the life sciences thus firmly within the thought of Western intellectual history because the Growth of Biological Thought. 10 years in preparation, this can be a piece of epic proportions, tracing the event of the foremost issues of biology from the earliest tries to seek out order within the diversity of life, to trendy analysis into the mechanisms of sequence transmission.
Excerpt
Much of recent biology, significantly the varied controversies between completely different colleges of thought, can not be totally understood while not a data of the historical background of the issues. Whenever I created this time to my students, they might inquire from me in what book they might scan au courant these matters. To my embarrassment, I had to admit that none of the revealed volumes stuffed this want. To be sure, there's abundant literature on the lives of biologists and their discoveries, however these writings area unit invariably inadequate as way as Associate in Nursing analysis of the main issues of biology area unit involved or as a history of ideas and ideas in biology. whereas a number of the histories of individual biological disciplines, like genetic science and physiology, area unit so histories of ideas, there's nothing out there that covers biology as a full. To fill this gap within the literature is that the object of this work. This volume isn't, and this should be stressed, a history of biology, and it's not supposed to displace existing histories of biology, equivalent to that of Nordenskiöld. the stress is on the background and therefore the development of the ideas dominating fashionable biology; in alternative words, it's a organic process, not a strictly descriptive, history. Such a treatment justifies, so necessitates, the neglect of sure temporary developments in biology that left no impact on the following history of ideas.
When I 1st planned the commit to write a history of ideas in biology, the goal appeared impossibly remote. the primary years (1970- 1975) were dedicated to reading, notetaking, and therefore the preparation of a primary draft. presently it became obvious that the topic was too large for one volume, and that i determined to arrange 1st a volume on the biology of "ultimate" (evolutionary) causations. however even this restricted objective could be a dispiritedly large endeavor. If I even have been in in the least, it's as a result of I even have myself done a substantial quantity of analysis in most areas coated by this volume. this suggests that i used to be already moderately at home with the issues and a few of the literature of the areas concerned
When I 1st planned the commit to write a history of ideas in biology, the goal appeared impossibly remote. the primary years (1970- 1975) were dedicated to reading, notetaking, and therefore the preparation of a primary draft. presently it became obvious that the topic was too large for one volume, and that i determined to arrange 1st a volume on the biology of "ultimate" (evolutionary) causations. however even this restricted objective could be a dispiritedly large endeavor. If I even have been in in the least, it's as a result of I even have myself done a substantial quantity of analysis in most areas coated by this volume. this suggests that i used to be already moderately at home with the issues and a few of the literature of the areas concerned
