History of Taxonomy
Taxonomy has a long history, spanning the course of over 2,000 years.
It has grown and developed into one of the major branches of biology.
Today, it is a universal methodology of grouping organisms according
to their characteristics and their evolutionary history. (Source:
Modern Biology 337)
One of the oldest known systems of classification is that of
Aristotle, who lived around 300 B.C. Dichotomies, or polar opposites,
were what Aristotle based his division of the complexity of life upon.
He divided organisms into two primary groups: animals and plants.
Then, he applied his dichotomy-based classification to these two
groups. For instance, Aristotle divided animals into ones whose bodies
contained blood and those whose bodies did not (as an extra note of
interest, the division between vertebrates and invertebrates roughly
corresponds to this classification). Aristotle also did a lot of work
on plants, but unfortunately, most of that work was lost. However,
Theophrastus, a pupil of his, studied plants in his work Inquiry into
Plants (trans. 1916), and in it, used Aristotle's taxonomic approach.
Theophrastus organized plants based on their shape (i.e. trees,
shrubs, and herbs). Later on, the Greek physician Dioscorides
developed more realistic approaches to classification. As an example,
he separated medicinal herbs from those used in making perfumes.
(Microsoft Encarta 2003, Classification)
As time passed, more and more organisms were discovered. During the
sixteenth century, Andrea Cesalpino, an Italian botanist, became the
first scientist to classify plants purely on characteristics of their
structur...
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...ntists
today. Of course, differences are inevitable. Modern taxnomists focus
a lot on the molecular phylogeny, or evolutionary history, of an
organism. Yet, Linnaeus's work is still helpful, because by
classifying organisms based on features that largely influenced by
genes, Linnaeus provided several clues of common ancestry (Source:
Modern Biology 339).
Works Cited
- Binomial Nomenclature. Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia. March 17th,
2003.
.
- "Classification," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2003. CD-ROM.
Microsoft
Corporation © 2003.
- "History of Taxonomy" Modern Biology. 2002.
- The Linnaean System. Dinosaur and Paleontology Dictionary.
1996-2003.
<
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/glossary/Linnaeus.shtml>.
Web. The Web. The Web. 11 February 2014 “Biology: Evolution”. The New York Public Library Science Desk Reference.
Jackson, James R. and Kimler, William C. "Taxonomy and the Personal Equation: The Historical Fates of Charles Girard and Louis Agassiz". Journal of the History of Biology. 32 (1999): 509-555.
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