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>.
In 1625, Jean de Brebeuf a French Jesuit missionary along with other Jesuit missionaries and servants set out and traveled to present day Georgia Bay. The aim of this voyage was the convert the native people of this land known as the Wendat to Christianity. In order to do this, several Jesuit missions were built near the Georgian Bay. However, it was clear from the beginning that the Hurons or Wendat people would not easily accept Brebeuf’s religion of Christinanity. There were many challenges, which he face during his time in the Wendat society, but eventually he was able to convert a sizeable amount of people.
o What we call things and where we draw the line between one class of things and another depends upon the interests we have and the purpose of the classification.
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.
After reading the articles on early civilization, I've identified several similarities and differences about the people who were from these three cultures. The civilizations in the articles include, the people from Mesopotamia, the Quiche' Indians, a tribe in early Meso-America, and "The book of Genesis" which offers a Christian or biblical explanation of how our own civilization originated. I will tell you about how they believed they came into existence and what they thought they should do to ensure their civilization continued. The three stories offered insight on how the different cultures lived by describing how they believed their civilization was created.
In Mivart’s Genesis of Species, the author highlights the inconsistencies of Darwin’s natural selection theory. He supports his assertion by emphasizing how species placed in similar environments acquire different traits, questioning the long-term advantages of these evolved traits, and noting the logical inconsistencies of how traits can span in all directions.
This theory was developed from the combined efforts of many different researchers. Together, Konstantin Mereschkowsky, Boris Mikhaylovich Kozo-Polyansky, Ivan Wallin, and Lynn Margulis are the main researchers whom coined the term “symbiogenesis” referring to the long term, or permanent physical association between “differently named partners” (taxa), or the genesis of new species through the merging of two or more existing species (Margulis). Endosymbiosis and symbiogenesis define hypothetical theories thought to justify the origin of species in addition to the processes of natural selection and random mutation. B.M. Kozo-Polyansky and Lynn Margulis, who very much admired Kozo-Polyansky’s work, both believed symbiogenesis was the major source of innovation for evolution (Margulis). The most well known of the first speculations about the origin of organelles, was Mereschkowsky. He primarily studied the chloroplast and was the first to suggest they were obtained initially from unicellular organisms that had been “enslaved” as endosymbionts. However, his theory was turned ...
The Aztec Empire was the largest civilization of the Americas in the early 16th century until Spanish conquistadors arrived in the New World. A motley crew of men from Spain, they were led by Hernan Cortes who intended to expand lands for the Spanish monarch and through many factors he was able to do just that. The three main factors that contributed to the fall of Tenochtitlan by the hands of Spanish conquistadors were significance of native allies, difference in battle tactics among the natives and conquistadors, and widespread disease. Another chapter in the Spanish colonization of the Americas, this one stands out in particular due to its unorthodox sequence of events that led a small group of men to defeating an entire empire in a few short years.
Homology is one of the methods used as evidence for evolution. This term has changed over time as researchers increased their understanding of evolution. In 1843 homology was a term that was used for organs that were similar in different animals, this meant that the organ just had to be present regardless of the function (Haszprunar 1992). In 1982 the definition of homology was changed meaning the same as apomorphy; in other words, a trait that has developed between two species that was not present in the ancestor (Haszprunar 1992). Both of these definitions have a role in shaping the classical since of the definition of homology which stated by Herron and Freeman (2014) as similarity of structures regardless of the function.
Four-hundred years ago, scientists began identifying substances now know as elements. They began recognising patterns in the properties as the number of know elements grew, leading to the beginning of classification schemes that would come to devise the periodic table as we know it today ("The Periodic Table", n.d.).
Web. The Web. The Web. 11 February 2014 “Biology: Evolution”. The New York Public Library Science Desk Reference.
When you mention zoology plenty of people link it to zoos and caring for animal habitats, yet they don’t know that Zoology originates from Ancient Greek. (7) Aristotle is known as the founder of Zoology because he was the first to be intrigued by exotic animals. He published his research that he kept while studying certain species in the book “De Animalibus” in 1476. (7) Even though Aristotle investigated a variety of different animals his main focus was Marine Life. (7) A bird’s egg fascinated him because it led him to investigate the gender differentiation s. (7) When Aristotle’s book be...
Most animal phyla originated in a relatively brief span of geological time, however the diversity among them is extraordinary. Every organism is very unique a detailed in certain ways, comparisons of certain types of organisms can be very difficult. The class in which will be compared is that of the invertebrates.
These topics mostly dealt with issues such as government, opinions toward justice and how people really viewed education. Aristotle also had his own theories towards his belief in the "right government". He wanted his results to show happiness among the people. He'd mainly collect information from studying living creatures and observing their living habits. He would do this so that he could see what brought them happiness.
Aristotle made contributions to logic, physics, biology, medicine, and agriculture. He redesigned most, if not all, areas of knowledge he studied. Later in life he became the “Father of logic” and was the first to develop a formalized way of reasoning. Aristotle was a greek philosopher who founded formal logic, pioneered zoology, founded his own school, and classified the various branches of philosophy.