|
Vitalism
Vitalism is a belief that starts from the premise that "living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things." Where vitalism explicitly invokes a vital principle, that element is often referred to as the "vital spark", "energy", "'' élan vital''" (coined by vitalist Henri Bergson), "vital force", or "''vis vitalis''", which some equate with the soul. In the 18th and 19th centuries, vitalism was discussed among biologists, between those who felt that the known mechanics of physics would eventually explain the difference between life and non-life and vitalists who argued that the processes of life could not be reduced to a mechanistic process. Vitalist biologists such as Johannes Reinke proposed testable hypotheses meant to show inadequacies with mechanistic explanations, but their experiments failed to provide support for vitalism. Biologists now ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alternatives To Evolution By Natural Selection
Alternatives to Darwinian evolution have been proposed by scholars investigating biology to explain signs of evolution and the relatedness of different groups of living things. The alternatives in question do not deny that evolutionary changes over time are the origin of the diversity of life, nor that the organisms alive today share a common ancestor from the distant past (or ancestors, in some proposals); rather, they propose alternative mechanisms of evolutionary change over time, arguing against mutations acted on by natural selection as the most important driver of evolutionary change. This distinguishes them from certain other kinds of arguments that deny that large-scale evolution of any sort has taken place, as in some forms of creationism, which do not propose alternative mechanisms of evolutionary change but instead deny that evolutionary change has taken place at all. Not all forms of creationism deny that evolutionary change takes place; notably, proponents of theis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
On Growth And Form
''On Growth and Form'' is a book by the Scottish mathematical biology, mathematical biologist D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860–1948). The book is long – 793 pages in the first edition of 1917, 1116 pages in the second edition of 1942. The book covers many topics including the effects of scale on the shape of animals and plants, large ones necessarily being relatively thick in shape; the effects of surface tension in shaping soap films and similar structures such as cells; the logarithmic spiral as seen in mollusc shells and ruminant horns; the arrangement of leaves and other plant parts (phyllotaxis); and Thompson's own method of transformations, showing the changes in shape of animal skulls and other structures on a Cartesian coordinate system, Cartesian grid. The work is widely admired by biologists, anthropologists and architects among others, but is often not read by people who cite it. Peter Medawar explains this as being because it clearly pioneered the use of Mathema ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Materialism
Materialism is a form of monism, philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental Substance theory, substance in nature, and all things, including mind, mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materialism, mind and consciousness are caused by physical processes, such as the neurochemistry of the human brain and nervous system, without which they cannot exist. Materialism directly contrasts with monistic idealism, according to which consciousness is the fundamental substance of nature. Materialism is closely related to physicalism—the view that all that exists is ultimately physical. Philosophical physicalism has evolved from materialism with the theories of the physical sciences to incorporate forms of physicality in addition to ordinary matter (e.g. spacetime, energy, physical energies and forces, and exotic matter). Thus, some prefer the term ''physicalism'' to ''materialism'', while others use them as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
D'Arcy Thompson
Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson CB FRS FRSE (2 May 1860 – 21 June 1948) was a Scottish biologist, mathematician and classics scholar. He was a pioneer of mathematical and theoretical biology, travelled on expeditions to the Bering Strait and held the position of Professor of Natural History at University College, Dundee for 32 years, then at St Andrews for 31 years. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, was knighted, and received the Darwin Medal and the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal. Thompson is remembered as the author of the 1917 book '' On Growth and Form'', which led the way for the scientific explanation of morphogenesis, the process by which patterns and body structures are formed in plants and animals. Thompson's description of the mathematical beauty of nature, and the mathematical basis of the forms of animals and plants, stimulated thinkers as diverse as Julian Huxley, C. H. Waddington, Alan Turing, René Thom, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Eduardo Paolo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Superseded Scientific Theories
This list includes well-known general theories in science and pre-scientific natural philosophy and natural history that have since been superseded by other scientific theories. Many discarded explanations were once supported by a scientific consensus, but replaced after more empirical information became available that identified flaws and prompted new theories which better explain the available data. Pre-modern explanations originated before the scientific method, with varying degrees of empirical support. Some scientific theories are discarded in their entirety, such as the replacement of the phlogiston theory by energy and thermodynamics. Some theories known to be incomplete or in some ways incorrect are still used. For example, Newtonian classical mechanics is accurate enough for practical calculations at everyday distances and velocities, and it is still taught in schools. The more complicated relativistic mechanics must be used for long distances and velocities nearing t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johannes Reinke
Johannes Reinke (February 3, 1849 – February 25, 1931) was a German botanist and philosopher, born in Ziethen, Lauenburg. He is remembered for his research of benthic marine algae. Academic background Reinke studied botany with his father from the age of eight. Reinke studied theology at Rostock, but his focus later changed to botany. In 1879 he became a professor of botany at the University of Göttingen, where he established the institute of plant physiology. From 1885 until 1921, he was a professor at the University of Kiel. Reinke was a co-founder of the ''Deutsche Botanische Gesellschaft''. Contributions Reinke had a keen interest in the systematics, developmental cycles, cytology and physiology of brown algae. From 1888 to 1892, he published a number of articles on marine algae from the North and Baltic Seas — in regards to the Baltic, he described several new genera of algae. He also published works on the algal families Tilopteridaceae (1889) and Sphacelariacea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson (; ; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopher who was influential in the traditions of analytic philosophy and continental philosophy, especially during the first half of the 20th century until the Second World War, but also after 1966 when Gilles Deleuze published ''Le Bergsonisme''. Bergson is known for his arguments that processes of immediate experience and Intuition (knowledge), intuition are more significant than abstract rationalism and science for understanding reality. Bergson was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brilliant skill with which they have been presented". In 1930, France awarded him its highest honour, the Grand-Croix de la Legion d'honneur. Bergson's great popularity created a controversy in France, where his views were seen as opposing the Secularism in France, secular and scientific attitude adopted by the French Third Republic, Republic's offici ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
élan Vital
''Élan vital'' () is a term coined by French philosopher Henri Bergson in his 1907 book '' Creative Evolution'', in which he addresses the question of self-organisation and spontaneous morphogenesis of things in an increasingly complex manner. ''Élan vital'' was translated in the English edition as "vital impetus", but is usually translated by his detractors as "vital force". It is a hypothetical explanation for evolution and development of organisms, which Bergson linked closely with consciousness – the intuitive perception of experience and the flow of inner time. Precursors Distant anticipations of Bergson can be found in the work of the pre-Christian Stoic philosopher Posidonius, who postulated a "vital force" emanated by the sun to all living creatures on the Earth's surface, and in that of Zeno of Elea. The concept of ''élan vital'' is also similar to Baruch Spinoza's concept of conatus as well as Arthur Schopenhauer's concept of the will-to-live and the Sans ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Logos
''Logos'' (, ; ) is a term used in Western philosophy, psychology and rhetoric, as well as religion (notably Logos (Christianity), Christianity); among its connotations is that of a rationality, rational form of discourse that relies on inductive reasoning, inductive and deductive reasoning, deductive reasoning. Aristotle first systematized the usage of the word, making it one of the three principles of rhetoric alongside ethos and pathos. This original use identifies the word closely to the structure and content of language or Text (literary theory), text. Both Plato and Aristotle used the term ''logos'' (along with ''rhema'') to refer to Sentence (language), sentences and Proposition (philosophy), propositions. Background is related to which is cognate with . The word derives from a Proto-Indo-European root, *leǵ-, which can have the meanings "I put in order, arrange, gather, choose, count, reckon, discern, say, speak". In modern usage, it typically connotes the verbs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deductive Argument
Deductive reasoning is the process of drawing valid inferences. An inference is valid if its conclusion follows logically from its premises, meaning that it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false. For example, the inference from the premises "all men are mortal" and " Socrates is a man" to the conclusion "Socrates is mortal" is deductively valid. An argument is ''sound'' if it is valid ''and'' all its premises are true. One approach defines deduction in terms of the intentions of the author: they have to intend for the premises to offer deductive support to the conclusion. With the help of this modification, it is possible to distinguish valid from invalid deductive reasoning: it is invalid if the author's belief about the deductive support is false, but even invalid deductive reasoning is a form of deductive reasoning. Deductive logic studies under what conditions an argument is valid. According to the semantic approach, an argument is valid if ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pneuma
''Pneuma'' () is an ancient Greek word for "breathing, breath", and in a religious context for "spirit (animating force), spirit". It has various technical meanings for medical writers and philosophers of classical antiquity, particularly in regard to physiology, and is also used in Greek translations of ''ruach'' :wikt:רוח, רוח in the Hebrew Bible, and in the Novum Testamentum Graece, Greek New Testament. In classical philosophy, it is distinguishable from ''Psyche (psychology)#Etymology, psyche'' (), which originally meant "breath of life", but is regularly translated as "spirit" or most often "soul#Philosophical views, soul". Presocratics , "air in motion, breath, wind", is equivalent in the material monism of Anaximenes of Miletus, Anaximenes to (, "air") as the element from which all else originated. This usage is the earliest extant occurrence of the term in philosophy. A quotation from Anaximenes observes that "just as our soul (''psyche''), being air (), holds us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stoic Physics
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished in ancient Greece and Rome. The Stoics believed that the universe operated according to reason, ''i.e.'' by a God which is immersed in nature itself. Of all the schools of ancient philosophy, Stoicism made the greatest claim to being utterly systematic. The Stoics provided a unified account of the world, constructed from ideals of logic, monistic physics, and naturalistic ethics. These three ideals constitute virtue which is necessary for 'living a well reasoned life', seeing as they are all parts of a logos, or philosophical discourse, which includes the mind's rational dialogue with itself. Stoicism was founded in the ancient Agora of Athens by Zeno of Citium around 300 BC, and flourished throughout the Greco-Roman world until the 3rd century AD, and among its adherents was Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Along with Aristotelian term logic, the system of propositional logic developed by the Stoics was one of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
