The Rise and Fall of German Biology : Considerations upon the Character, Intellectual, and Social Impact of Continental Autonomistic Biology in the Modern Era
Abstract
In this work, the author uses an essayistic approach to analyse the impact of biology within the German cultural sphere in approximately 1780-1945. The main focus is on that part of biology's roots and specific features which through the prism of subsequent scientific and cultural development appear to constitute a 'side line', although they contain many inspiring ideas and thoughts.
Despite the widespread conviction that science is 'transnational' and 'absolutely objective', the language in which it expresses itself has an impact on its substance. Science is influenced and shaped by the historical, cultural, and philosophical environment prevalent within the cultural and linguistic sphere in which it is practiced.
An especially good example of this phenomenon is German biology of approximately 1780-1945 (and sporadically until the 1970s), which subsequent historical and cultural development had ultimately relegated to the sidelines of international biological thinking. It does, however, contain many interesting and inspiring ideas which are hard to express or even hard to conceive of within 'Anglo-Saxon' biology.
The author examines the roots and causes of this development.