Development of biology in the pre-Darwinian period. Work of C. Linnaeus

Textbook matches basic level Federal component of the state standard of general education in biology and recommended by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.

The textbook is addressed to students in grades 10-11 and completes the line of N.I. Sonin. However, the peculiarities of the presentation of the material make it possible to use it at the final stage of studying biology after textbooks of all existing lines.

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4.1. Development of biology in the pre-Darwinian period. Work of C. Linnaeus

Remember!

What views on the origin of life existed in the ancient and medieval periods?

The world of living organisms has a number of common features, which always evoked a sense of surprise in a person and gave rise to many questions. The first of these common features is the extraordinary complexity of the structure of organisms. The second is the obvious expediency of the structure; each species in nature is adapted to the conditions of its existence. And finally, the third pronounced feature is the enormous diversity existing species.

How did complex organisms arise? Under the influence of what forces were the features of their structure formed? What is the origin of diversity organic world and how is it supported? What place does a person occupy in this world and who are his ancestors? Answers these and many other questions evolutionary doctrine, which is the theoretical basis of biology.

The term “evolution” (from Latin evolutio - deployment) was introduced into science in the 18th century. Swiss zoologist Charles Bonnet. Under evolution understand biology an irreversible process of historical change in living beings and their communities. Evolutionary doctrine is the science of causes driving forces, mechanisms and general patterns of transformation of living beings over time. The theory of evolution takes special place in the study of life. It plays the role of a unifying theory, which forms the foundation for all biological science.

Antique and medieval performances about the essence and development of life. People have tried to explain the origin of life and man since ancient times. Many religions and philosophical theories arose as attempts to solve these global issues.

Ideas about the changeability of the surrounding world arose many thousands of years ago. IN Ancient China The philosopher Confucius believed that life arose from one source through divergence and branching. In the era of antiquity, ancient Greek philosophers were looking for that material principle that was the source and fundamental principle of life. Diogenes believed that all beings are similar to one original being and arose from it as a result of differentiation. Thales assumed that all living organisms originated from water, Anaxagoras argued that from air, and Democritus explained the origin of life by the process of its spontaneous generation from silt.

The research and philosophical theories of such outstanding scientists of antiquity as Pythagoras, Anaximander, and Hippocrates had a great influence on the development and formation of ideas about living nature.

The greatest of the ancient Greek scientists, Aristotle, possessing encyclopedic knowledge, laid the foundations for the development of biology and formulated the theory of continuous and gradual development living from nonliving matter. In his work “History of Animals,” Aristotle first developed the taxonomy of animals (Fig. 96). He divided all animals into two large groups: animals with blood and bloodless. He, in turn, divided animals with blood into oviparous and viviparous. In another of his works, Aristotle first expressed the idea that nature is a continuous series of increasingly complex forms: from inanimate bodies to plants, from plants to animals and further to humans (Fig. 97).

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Rice. 96. System of the animal world according to Aristotle. The corresponding modern systematic names are given in brackets

In his work “The Origin of Animals,” Aristotle described the development of the chicken embryo and suggested that the embryos of viviparous animals also originate from eggs, but only without a hard shell. Thus, Aristotle, to some extent, can be considered the founder of embryology, the science of embryonic development.

With the advent of the Middle Ages, an idealistic worldview based on church dogmas spread in Europe. The Supreme Mind, or God, is proclaimed the creator of all living things. Considering nature from such positions, scientists believed that all living beings are the material embodiment of the Creator’s ideas, they are perfect, meet the purpose of their existence and are unchangeable over time. This metaphysical direction in the development of biology is called creationism(from lat. creatio - creation, creation).

During this period, many classifications of plants and animals were created, but mostly they had formal character and did not reflect the degree of relationship between organisms.

Interest in biology increased during the era of the Great geographical discoveries. America was discovered in 1492. Intensive trade and travel expanded knowledge about plants and animals. New plants were brought to Europe - potatoes, tomatoes, sunflowers, corn, cinnamon, tobacco and many others. Scientists have described many previously unseen animals and plants. There is an urgent need to create a unified scientific classification living organisms.

Rice. 97. Aristotle's Ladder of Creatures

System of organic nature by K. Linnaeus. The outstanding Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus made a great contribution to the creation of the system of nature. The scientist considered a species to be a real and elementary unit of living nature, having not only morphological, but also physiological criteria (for example, non-crossbreeding different types). At the beginning of its scientific activity C. Linnaeus adhered to metaphysical views, so he believed that species and their number are unchanged. Having developed short and clear definitions of characteristics, the scientist described about 10 thousand species of plants and more than 4 thousand species of animals. At the age of 28, C. Linnaeus published his most famous work, “The System of Nature,” in which he described the basic principles of systematics - the science of classifying living organisms. He based his classification on the principle of hierarchy (subordination) of taxa (from the Greek taxis - arrangement in order), when several small taxa (species) are combined into a larger genus, genera are combined into orders, etc. The largest unit in the system Linnaeus was class. With the development of biology, additional categories (family, subclass, etc.) were added to the taxon system, but the principles of taxonomy laid down by Linnaeus have remained unchanged to this day. To designate species, the scientist introduced a binary (double) nomenclature, the first word of the name designated the genus, the second – the species. In the 18th century Latin was the international scientific language, so Linnaeus gave names to species Latin, which made his system universal and understandable throughout the world.

Carl Linnaeus built the first scientific system living nature, which included all animals and all plants known at that time and was the most perfect for its time. For the first time, man was placed in the same group with monkeys. However, when distributing organisms into taxonomic groups, Linnaeus took into account limited quantity signs. For example, all animals were divided into 6 classes according to the structure of the respiratory and circulatory systems: worms, insects, fish, reptiles, birds and animals. Within classes, Linnaeus was based on smaller features, for example, he united birds by their beaks, and animals by the structure of their teeth.

Linnaeus chose the number of stamens as the main characteristic of flowering plants. This led to the fact that organisms that were far apart in terms of the degree of relatedness fell into one group. For example, lilac and willow were included in one of the 24 classes of plants, rice and tulip were included in another. Linnaeus identified all plants that do not have flowers in a separate class - secretogamy. However, along with algae, spores and gymnosperms, he also took mushrooms and lichens there. Realizing the artificiality of his system of nature, Linnaeus wrote: “An artificial system serves only until a natural one is created.”

Linnaeus expressed his credo as a scientist: “When I first began to study nature, I saw its contradiction with what could be considered the Creator’s plan. I cast aside my prejudices and began to doubt everything, and then my eyes were opened for the first time and I saw the truth.”

Along with this, in the 17th–19th centuries. In Europe, there was a different system of views on the variability of organisms, which was formed on the basis of the worldviews of ancient philosophers. Many prominent scientists of that time believed that organisms are capable of changing under the influence of the environment. However, scientists did not strive, and did not have the opportunity, to prove the evolutionary transformations of organisms. This direction in the development of biology is called transformism(from Latin transformo - transform). Among the representatives of this trend were Erasmus Darwin (the grandfather of Charles Darwin), Robert Hooke, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Denis Diderot, and in Russia - Afanasy Kaverznev and Karl Roulier.

Review questions and assignments

1. What was known about living nature in the Ancient world?

2. How can one explain the dominance of ideas about the immutability of species in the 18th century?

3. What is taxonomy?

4. On what principle is K. Linnaeus’ classification of organisms based?

5. Explain the idea expressed by K. Linnaeus: “The system is the Ariadne thread of botany, without it the herbarium business turns into chaos.”

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People have tried to explain the origin of life and man since ancient times. Many religions and philosophical theories arose as attempts to resolve these global issues.
Ideas about the changeability of the surrounding world appeared many thousands of years ago. In Ancient China, the philosopher Confucius1 believed that life arose from one source through divergence and branching. In the era of Antiquity, ancient Greek philosophers were looking for that material principle that was the source and fundamental principle of life. Diogenes believed that all beings are similar to one original being and arose from it as a result of differentiation. Thales assumed that all living organisms originated from water, Anaxagoras argued that from air, and Democritus explained the origin of life by the process of its spontaneous generation from silt.

Rice. 1. The system of the animal world according to Aristotle. The corresponding modern systematic names are given in brackets

The research and philosophical theories of such outstanding scientists of Antiquity as Pythagoras, Anaximander, and Hippocrates had a great influence on the development and formation of ideas about living nature.
The greatest of the ancient Greek scientists, Aristotle, possessing encyclopedic knowledge, laid the foundations for the development of biology and formulated the theory of the continuous and gradual development of living things from non-living matter. In his work “History of Animals,” Aristotle first developed the taxonomy of animals (Fig. 1). He divided all animals into two large groups: animals with blood and bloodless ones. He, in turn, divided animals with blood into oviparous (oviparous) and viviparous. In another of his works, Aristotle first expressed the idea that nature is a continuous series of increasingly complex forms: from inanimate bodies to plants, from plants to animals and further to humans (Fig. 2).
In his work “The Origin of Animals,” Aristotle described the development of a chicken embryo and suggested that the embryos of viviparous animals also originate from an egg, but only without a hard shell. Thus, Aristotle, to some extent, can be considered the founder of embryology, the science of embryonic development.

Rice. 2. Aristotle's Ladder of Creatures

With the advent of the Middle Ages, an idealistic worldview based on church dogmas spread in Europe. The Supreme Mind, or God, is proclaimed the creator of all living things. Considering nature from such positions, scientists believed that all living beings are the material embodiment of the Creator’s ideas, they are perfect, meet the purpose of their existence and are unchangeable over time. This metaphysical direction in the development of biology is called creationism (from the Latin creatio - creation, creation).
During this period, many classifications of plants and animals were created, but mostly they were of a formal nature and did not reflect the degree of relationship between organisms.
Interest in biology increased during the era of the Great Geographical Discoveries. America was discovered in 1492. Intensive trade and travel expanded knowledge about plants and animals. New plants were brought to Europe - potatoes, tomatoes, sunflowers, corn, cinnamon, tobacco and many others. Scientists described many previously unseen animals and plants. There is an urgent need to create a unified scientific classification of living organisms.

Biology methods

The main methods in biology are:

· Descriptive

Comparative

· Experimental

· Historical

The meaning of biology great for medicine. Biology – theoretical basis medicine. Doctor Ancient Greece Hippocrates believed that “it is necessary that every physician should understand nature.” All theoretical and practical medical sciences use general biological generalizations. Theoretical research conducted in various fields of biology allows the data obtained to be used in the practical activities of medical workers.

Biosocial nature of man.

Humans have a unique place on the planet among other creatures. This is due to their acquisition of a special quality in the process of anthropogenesis - social essence. This means that it is no longer biological mechanisms, but primarily the social structure, production, and labor that ensure survival, worldwide and even cosmic settlement, and the well-being of humanity. Sociality, however, does not contrast people with the rest of living nature. The acquisition of this quality only indicates that from now on the historical development of representatives of the species Homo Sapiens, i.e. humanity, is subject to the laws of social, not biological development.

The development of life in one of its branches led to the appearance modern man, combining the biological and the social. These relationships cannot be represented as a simple combination or subordination of one to the other. Biological processes occur in the human body, they play a fundamental role in determining the most important aspects of life support and development. At the same time, these processes in human populations do not produce results that are natural and obligatory for the populations of other representatives of the world of living beings.

In the conditions of modern energy and technical equipment, the impact of humanity on the biosphere turns out to be such that it is no longer possible, even from a medical point of view, for people to continue to ignore their own biology, their biological inheritance.

The importance of biology as a basic discipline in the training of a doctor.

The importance of biology for medicine is great. Biology is the theoretical basis of medicine. The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates believed that “it is necessary that every physician understand nature.” All theoretical and practical medical sciences use general biological generalizations.

Theoretical research conducted in various fields of biology allows the data obtained to be used in the practical activities of medical workers. The dependence of people's health on the quality of the environment and lifestyle is no longer in doubt either among practicing doctors or health care organizers. A natural consequence of this is the currently observed greening of medicine.

Development of ideas about the essence of life. Definition of life from the perspective of a systems approach.

Development of ideas about the essence of life. Definition of life.

Many scientists and philosophers have defined the concept of “life,” but there is no strict and clear definition of the concept of “life,” since the amazing diversity of life creates great difficulties for its unambiguous and comprehensive definition as a special natural phenomenon. Many definitions of life, proposed by outstanding thinkers and scientists, indicate the leading properties that qualitatively distinguish living from non-living. Definitions of life were also given based on the substrate, which is the bearer of the properties of living things.

Life can be defined as the existence of complexes of nucleic acids and proteins in a certain cellular environment, its essence lies in maintaining sufficient constancy of this structure ( nucleic acid+ protein). Flows of energy, information, and matter pass through living systems. Life is a higher form of existence of matter compared to the physical and chemical.

Basic properties of living things

· Chemical composition.

· Structural organization.

· Metabolism and energy.

· Self-regulation.

· Integrity (continuity) and discreteness (discontinuity).

· Self-reproduction (reproduction).

· Heredity and variability.

· Growth and development.

· Irritability and excitability.

Biological (living) systems are a special stage of development and a form of movement of matter. General theory of systems, theory of biological systems, significance of the works of A.A., Bogdanov, P.K. Anokhina, L. von Bertalanffy in their development.

4. Almost everything biological systems belong to the open type.

One of the negative manifestations of human activity in nature is associated with disruption of connections in ecosystems, which can lead to the destruction of ecosystems or their transition to another state. Energy processes in biological systems obey the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The entropy value becomes maximum as the biological system reaches a state of equilibrium. At the same time, as they grow and develop, living organisms become more complex and are characterized by low entropy.

History of ideas about the development of life on Earth

The first attempt to systematize and generalize the accumulated knowledge about plants and animals and their life activity was made by Aristotle (IV century BC), but long before him in literary monuments various peoples of antiquity a lot was stated interesting information about the organization of living nature, mainly related to agronomy, animal husbandry and medicine;1 biological knowledge itself goes back to ancient times and is based on the direct practical activities of people. Based on the rock paintings of Cro-Magnon man (13 thousand years BC), it can be established that already at that time people could clearly distinguish large number animals that served as the object of their hunt.

Ancient and medieval ideas about the essence and development of life

In Ancient Greece in the VIII-VI centuries. BC e. in the depths of the holistic philosophy of nature, the first rudiments of ancient science arose. The founders of Greek philosophy Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes and Heraclitus were looking for a material source from which the world arose due to natural self-development. For Thales, this first principle was water. Living beings, according to the teachings of Anaximander, are formed from indefinite matter - “aleurone” according to the same laws as objects inanimate nature. The third Ionian philosopher Anaximenes considered the material origin of the world to be air, from which everything arises and into which everything returns. He also identified the human soul with air.

The greatest of the ancient Greek philosophers was Heraclitus of Ephesus. His teaching does not contain special provisions about living nature, but it was of great importance both for the development of all natural science and for the formation of ideas about living matter. Heraclitus was the first to introduce into philosophy and natural science a clear idea of ​​constant change. The scientist considered fire to be the origin of the world; he taught that every change is the result of struggle: “Everything arises through struggle and out of necessity.”

The development of ideas about living nature was greatly influenced by the research and speculative concepts of other scientists of antiquity: Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, Hippocrates and many others (see Chapter 2).

IN ancient world Numerous information about living nature was collected for that time. Aristotle carried out a systematic study of animals, describing more than 500 species of animals and placing them in in a certain order: from simply arranged to increasingly complex. The sequence of natural bodies outlined by Aristotle begins with inorganic bodies and goes through plants to attached animals - sponges and ascidians, and then to freely moving ones. marine organisms. Aristotle and his students also studied the structure of plants.

In all bodies of nature, Aristotle distinguished two sides: matter, which has various possibilities, and form - the soul, under the influence of which this possibility of matter is realized. He distinguished three types of soul: vegetable, or nourishing, inherent in plants and animals; feeling, characteristic of animals, and reason, which, in addition to the first two, is endowed with man.

Throughout the Middle Ages, the works of Aristotle were the basis of ideas about living nature.

With the establishment christian church In Europe, an official point of view is spreading, based on biblical texts: all living things are created by God and remain unchanged. This direction in the development of biology in the Middle Ages is called creationism (from the Latin creatio - creation, creation). Characteristic feature This period is a description of existing species of plants and animals, attempts to classify them, which for the most part were of a purely formal (alphabetical) or applied nature. Many systems of classification of animals and plants were created, in which individual characteristics were arbitrarily taken as a basis.

Interest in biology increased during the era of the Great Geographical Discoveries (15th century) and the development of commercial production. Intensive trade and the discovery of new lands expanded information about animals and plants. New plants were brought from India and America to Europe - cinnamon, cloves, potatoes, corn, tobacco. Botanists and zoologists described many new, previously unseen plants and animals. For practical purposes, they indicated what beneficial or harmful properties these organisms had.

The formation of psychology as a science was closely connected with the development of philosophy and the natural sciences, in the depths of which its formation took place. The first ideas about the psyche developed in primitive society. Even in ancient times, people drew attention to the fact that there are real phenomena, material (objects, nature, people) and non-material (images of people and objects, memories, experiences) - mysterious, but existing independently, regardless of the surrounding world. This is how the idea of ​​body and soul, of matter and psyche as independent principles arose. These ideas later became the basis of fundamentally opposing philosophical directions, between which there was a constant struggle of views and approaches. Ancient thinkers made the first attempts to find answers to the questions: what is the soul? What are its functions and properties? How does it relate to the body?

Stage 1 The greatest philosopher of antiquity Democritus(V-IV centuries BC) claims that the soul also consists of atoms, and with the death of the body the soul also dies. The soul is the driving principle, it is material. A different idea of ​​the essence of the soul develops Plato(428-348 BC). Plato argues that everything is based on ideas that exist on their own. Ideas form their own world; the world of matter opposes it. Between them, the world soul acts as an intermediary. According to Plato, a person does not so much know as remember what the soul already knew. The soul is immortal, Plato believed. The first work devoted to the soul was created by Aristotle (384-322 BC). His treatise “On the Soul” is considered the first psychological work. This is how the historically first stage of the formation of psychology as a science of the soul took place. Stage 2. By the beginning of the 17th century, when mechanics and some areas of mathematics and natural sciences had already received significant development, the methodological prerequisites for understanding psychology as an independent branch of knowledge were laid. The psychology of the soul is being replaced by the psychology of consciousness. The soul begins to be understood as consciousness, the activity of which is directly related to the work of the brain. In contrast to the psychology of the soul, which is based on simple reasoning, the psychology of consciousness considers the main sources of knowledge self-observation of one's inner world . This specific cognition is called the method introspection(“looking inside”) The formation of psychological views during this period is associated with the activities of a number of scientists: Rene Descartes (1595-1650), B. Spinoza (1632-1677), D. Locke (1632-1704), etc. Further development sciences, especially natural sciences, within which objective research methods were developed, increasingly raised the question of the possibility of objective psychological research. A special role was played in this regard by the studies of physiologists and naturalists of the first half of the 19th century V. Played a big role in this regard evolutionary doctrine of G. Darwin(1809-1882). A row appears basic research, dedicated general patterns development of sensitivity and specifically the work of various sense organs (I. Muller, E. Weber, G. Helmholtz, etc.). Special significance for the development of experimental psychology acquired the works of Weber, devoted to the question of the relationship between the increase in irritation And sensation. These studies were then continued, generalized and subjected to mathematical processing G. Fechner. Thus the foundations of experimental psychophysical research were laid. The experiment begins to very quickly take root in the study of central psychological problems. In 1879, the first psychological experimental laboratory was opened in Germany (W. Wund), in Russia (V. Bekhterev), experimental work begins to expand rapidly, and psychology becomes an independent experimental science. The introduction of experimentation into psychology made it possible to pose the question of methods of psychological research in a new way and to put forward new requirements and criteria for being scientific. During this period, such psychological concepts, How " soul", "conscious and unconscious", some scientific concepts arise and, nevertheless, this period is often called the period open crisis. There were many reasons that led psychology to a crisis: Many theoretical propositions were not sufficiently well substantiated and confirmed experimentally. Stage 3 The crisis led to the collapse of established psychological views. It was during this period that new directions began to take shape, which played an important role in the development of psychological science. The three most famous of them are: behaviorism, psychoanalysis, gestalt psychology. Stage 4. Psychology is a science that studies facts, patterns and mechanisms of the psyche.