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What is Biology?

What is Biology?. Levels of organization. Disciplines. How do we know things?. Perception. Our perception can be very different from reality - think of magicians The spell of the sensuous by David Abrams. Me ’ en Tribe of Ethiopia Picture recognition. Oral Culture Written culture.

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What is Biology?

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  1. What is Biology?

  2. Levels of organization

  3. Disciplines

  4. How do we know things?

  5. Perception Our perception can be very different from reality- think of magicians The spell of the sensuous by David Abrams

  6. Me’en Tribe of Ethiopia Picture recognition

  7. Oral Culture Written culture

  8. Hieroglyphics

  9. Cuniform writing - simplified about 1000 pictographs to 400 synpols

  10. Alphabet: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

  11. World View • Frame of reference • Explains how and why • Usually unquestioned

  12. Plato 427 – 347 BCAristotle 384 – 322 BC • The real world was ideal and perfect • The perceived world, observed through our senses, was imperfect • Organisms perfectly adapted (no evolution) • Scala naturae – ladder of increasing complexity • Major influence on Europe – lasted for 2000 years

  13. Separation of mind from body this led to a symbolic and abstract language I control my body I grow vegetables I can manage nature I has become a bodiless psyche

  14. J-C worldview • Answers to questions sought from people or texts of authority (sound familiar?) • By 1300’s Greek philosophy slowly filtered to the ‘west’translated from Greek to Arabic to Latin • Gutenberg 1397-1468 • Black Death • Universities and Museums

  15. Rise of the Mechanical World View

  16. Turning point came in 1543 • Publication of Archimedes • Publication of De RevolutionibusOrbiumCoelestrium by Copernicus • Publication of De HumaniCorporisFabrica by Vasalius

  17. Mechanical World View - Francis Bacon – NovumOrganum1620 • humans could and should liberate themselves from the natural world • objective knowledge • concentrate on the HOW not the WHY

  18. Sir Francis Bacon1561-1626 • Western science • Philosophical system for investigating nature • Did not like deductive reasoning- accept something as true and then deduce a consequence • We see what we believe rather than believe what we see. • Stressed induction – observation (data) and experimentation

  19. René Descartes (1596-1650)math was the language for understanding the natural world • Isaac Newton (1642-1727)mechanical motion, gravity • John Locke (1632-1704)social role of the state was to promote the subjugation of nature, trickle down theory • Adam Smith (1723-1790)economist “Wealth of Nations”, the Invisible Hand

  20. Science became the means for understanding the natural world. Technology became the means for ‘controlling’ the natural world.

  21. Mechanical world view Machine Analogy. Parts make up wholes; understand the parts and we can understand the whole. Separation of humans from the rest of nature. We can manage the machine.

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