Animal, vegetable, mineral? : how eighteenth-century science disrupted the natural order / Susannah Gibson.

By:

Gibson, Susannah [author.]

Material type: Text

text

Media type:

computer

Carrier type:

online resource

ISBN:

9780191015236
0191015237
0198705131
9780198705130

Subject(s): Genre/Form:

Additional physical formats: Print version:: Animal, vegetable, mineral? : how eighteenth-century science disrupted the natural order.DDC classification:

179/.1 23

LOC classification:

QH332

Online resources:

Click here to access online

Contents:

Animal, vegetable, mineral? -- Animal: the problem of the zoophyte -- Vegetable: the creation of new life -- Mineral: living rocks -- The fourth kingdom: perceptive plants.

Awards:

Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries (CBHL) Annual Literature Award - Nominee, 2016

Summary: Since the time of Aristotle, there had been a clear divide between the three kingdoms of animal, vegetable, and mineral. But by the eighteenth century, biological experiments, and the wide range of new creatures coming to Europe from across the world, challenged these neat divisions. Abraham Trembley found that freshwater polyps grew into complete individuals when cut. This shocking discovery raised deep questions: was it a plant or an animal? And this was not the only conundrum. What of coral? Was it a rock or a living form? Did plants have sexes, like animals? The boundaries appeared to blur. And what did all this say about the nature of life itself? Were animals and plants soul-less, mechanical forms, as Descartes suggested? The debates raging across science played into some of the biggest and most controversial issues of Enlightenment Europe. This book explains how a study of pond slime could cause people to question the existence of the soul; observation of eggs could make a man doubt that God had created the world; how the discovery of the Venus fly-trap was linked to the French Revolution and how interpretations of fossils could change our understanding of the Earth's history. Using rigorous historical research, and a lively and readable style, this book vividly captures the big concerns of eighteenth-century science. And the debates concerning the divisions of life did not end there; they continue to have resonances in modern biology.-- Source other than the Library of Congress.

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Holdings
Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Materials specified	Status	Date due	Barcode
Electronic-Books	OPJGU Sonepat- Campus	E-Books EBSCO			Available

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed June 9, 2015).

Animal, vegetable, mineral? -- Animal: the problem of the zoophyte -- Vegetable: the creation of new life -- Mineral: living rocks -- The fourth kingdom: perceptive plants.

Since the time of Aristotle, there had been a clear divide between the three kingdoms of animal, vegetable, and mineral. But by the eighteenth century, biological experiments, and the wide range of new creatures coming to Europe from across the world, challenged these neat divisions. Abraham Trembley found that freshwater polyps grew into complete individuals when cut. This shocking discovery raised deep questions: was it a plant or an animal? And this was not the only conundrum. What of coral? Was it a rock or a living form? Did plants have sexes, like animals? The boundaries appeared to blur. And what did all this say about the nature of life itself? Were animals and plants soul-less, mechanical forms, as Descartes suggested? The debates raging across science played into some of the biggest and most controversial issues of Enlightenment Europe. This book explains how a study of pond slime could cause people to question the existence of the soul; observation of eggs could make a man doubt that God had created the world; how the discovery of the Venus fly-trap was linked to the French Revolution and how interpretations of fossils could change our understanding of the Earth's history. Using rigorous historical research, and a lively and readable style, this book vividly captures the big concerns of eighteenth-century science. And the debates concerning the divisions of life did not end there; they continue to have resonances in modern biology.-- Source other than the Library of Congress.

Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries (CBHL) Annual Literature Award - Nominee, 2016

English.

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