Finding Order In Nature
The Naturalist Tradition from Linnaeus to E. O. Wilson
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“Engaging . . . a concise work that gives the general reader a solid understanding . . . an excellent introduction to the history of natural history.” —Library Journal
Since emerging as a discipline in the middle of the eighteenth century, natural history has been at the heart of the life sciences. It gave rise to the major organizing theory of life—evolution—and continues to be a vital science with impressive practical value. Central to advanced work in ecology, agriculture, medicine, and environmental science, natural history also attracts enormous popular interest.
In Finding Order in Nature Paul Farber traces the development of the naturalist tradition since the Enlightenment and considers its relationship to other research areas in the life sciences. Written for the general reader and student alike, the volume explores the adventures of early naturalists, the ideas that lay behind classification systems, the development of museums and zoos, and the range of motives that led collectors to collect. Farber also explores the importance of sociocultural contexts, institutional settings, and government funding in the story of this durable discipline.
“The history of natural history can rarely have been as succinctly told as in Paul Lawrence Farber’s 129-page Finding Order in Nature. From the intellectual revolutions of Linnaeus and Darwin through the Victorian obsessions with classifying and collecting, to the conservationists led by E. O. Wilson, it is an odyssey beautifully told.” —New Scientist
“Farber does an impressive job of demonstrating how practitioners like Linnaeus, Buffon, Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier advanced the field and set the stage for the development of science as we know it today.” —Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Farber, professor of the history of science at Oregon State University, examines the almost three-century-long tradition of natural history in this slim book, part of the Johns Hopkins Introductory Studies in the History of Science series. Natural history, according to Farber, falls between "folk biology" and mainstream science. "What distinguishes natural history from the `folk biology' of earlier studies is the attempt of naturalists to group animals, plants and minerals according to shared underlying features and to use rational, systematic methods to bring order to the otherwise overwhelming variation found in nature." What distinguishes it from contemporary science is the latter's reliance on experimentation. Farber does an impressive job of demonstrating how practitioners like Linnaeus, Buffon, Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier advanced the field and set the stage for the development of science as we know it today. Also discussed are the roles played by newly developed natural history museums, botanical gardens and zoological parks in both the scientific enterprise and in galvanizing public opinion about the importance of the natural world. The great showman P.T. Barnum, although more flamboyant than those heading the world's leading state-run institutions, played a similar role in attracting the public to natural curiosities, according to Farber in this estimable volume. 15 halftones and 7 line drawings.
