História natural e as idéias de geração e herança no século XVIII: Buffon e Bonnet

Abstract

The intellectual course of natural history reveals three conceptual approaches. The first was the taxonomic point of view, where naturalists worked to name and classify the living beings created by God. The second approach was provided by the eighteenth century's philosophical doctrine of mechanism, which lent natural history its method of endeavoring to comprehend the workings of organisms, inasmuch as the world "ran". Calling into question the adequacy of prior message, the third approach argued that living things display characteristics quite distinct from those of non-living matter, making it necessary to understand processes rather than simply decompose phenomena to then analyze them. This inadequacy became apparent at the moment when ideas of generation and heredity ascribed a reproductive history to living things, a history where the act of one fellow creature being formed by another plays an important role in coming to understand the workings of life. The paper analyzes these conceptual approaches from the perspective of Buffon's and Bonnet's ideas on reproduction and heredity, which represented opposite schools of thought: epigenesis and preformation.

Chip Off the Old Block: Generation, Development, and Ancestral Concepts of Heredity

“…He thought that “ God had endowed matter with certain powers of self-development, leaving the operation of natural causes in the production of plants and animals ” (see Lehoux, 2017 ). This theological view of nature slowly diminished its grip on scientists ( Merz, 1965 ), but it took centuries for naturalists to argue that living things display characteristics quite distinct from those of non-living matter, making it necessary to understand processes rather than simply decompose phenomena to then analyze them ( Castañeda, 1995 ).…”

Geração Espontanea E Evolução Química Gradual Em Livros Didáticos Do Ensino Fundamental

“…Stanley Lloyd Miller (1930-2007 Dessa forma, "Redi concluiu que seres vivos só poderiam se originar de outros seres vivos preexistentes (biogênese)", ou seja, partindo da observação experimental de um fenômeno específico, foi possível fundamentar a explicação universal de que "seres vivos só poderiam surgir de outros seres vivos". Um método próprio da história natural começa a surgir, apresentando que é a "reprodução que dá ao ser vivo um status distinto, onde a filosofia mecanicista, pela primeira vez, se apresenta inadequada, porém ela não é totalmente excluída no pensamento biológico nascente" (Castañeda, 1995 Além disso, alguns Autores foram importantes na circulação desses discursos.…”