Aristotle's Biology

In Our Time: Science

BBC

History

4.5 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2019

⏱️ 51 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the remarkable achievement of Aristotle (384-322BC) in the realm of biological investigation, for which he has been called the originator of the scientific study of life. Known mainly as a philosopher and the tutor for Alexander the Great, who reportedly sent him animal specimens from his conquests, Aristotle examined a wide range of life forms while by the Sea of Marmara and then on the island of Lesbos. Some ideas, such as the the spontaneous generation of flies, did not survive later scrutiny, yet his influence was extraordinary and his work was unequalled until the early modern period. The image above is of the egg and embryo of a dogfish, one of the animals Aristotle described accurately as he recorded their development. With Armand Leroi Professor of Evolutionary Development Biology at Imperial College London Myrto Hatzimichali Lecturer in Classics at the University of Cambridge And Sophia Connell Lecturer in Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London Producer: Simon Tillotson

Transcript

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0:47.0	Hello Aristotle 384 to 322 BC was not only a philosopher but also a great biologist studying life to help explain
0:56.0	the goal of life.
0:57.6	As well as the purpose of life you wanted to know what living things were made from
1:01.8	and where the information came from that made them that way
1:04.9	and he wanted to know what caused them to be alive.
1:08.0	While other Greek philosophers only thought of such things, Aristotle was the one who got down on his hands knees and examined real life,
1:14.4	scientifically from squid stomachs to fish gills to chick embryos.
1:18.6	And he developed ideas that were influential for 2,000 years and are arguably still today.
1:23.8	With me to discuss Aristotle's biology are Armand Lawa, Professor of Evolutionary Development
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