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Carregando... Generation: The Seventeenth-Century Scientists Who Unraveled the Secrets of Sex, Life, and Growthde Matthew Cobb
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Registre-se no LibraryThing tpara descobrir se gostará deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. Although the book's subject is the birth of our understanding of reproduction in the 1600s, its themes are excitingly broad, touching on the role of contingency, social structure and prevailing models in steering the conclusions scientists draw. Some of the don't-put-jam-on-a-magnet madness that passed for science in the 17th century could have been easily ascribed to the lack of a rigorous scientific method or certain experimental tools, but Cobb looks further, and the conclusions he draws are highly relevant to understanding the culture and practice of science even in the present day. The conversational style and rich historical detail made this a very pleasant read. Quite a well done popular history of the significant (if not complete) progress made toward the understanding of animal reproduction in the seventeenth century, by such characters as Steno, Swammerdam, van Horne, de Graaf, Redi, Leeuwenhoek and others. Cobb writes for a popular audience, ably distilling the discoveries (and ensuing feuds) of his subjects. The final chapter feels rather rushed as Cobb tries to bring the field up to the present, but other than that, this is very much worth a read if you have even a passing interest in the history of science in general and the debate over the nature of reproduction specifically. If you enjoy the history of science, this is an excellent book. It covers fresh territory, highlighting especially a group of relatively unknown 17th century thinkers who tried to understand "generation", i.e. reproduction, which, given a complete lack of understanding of genetics, was especially tricky. The characters act as many of their time did -- jealous and petty at times regarding their reputations, but brilliant and quirky in a way that often showed remarkable insight on almost unattainable evidence. In some ways, it reminds us that for all of our DNA mapping and genetic engineering the creation of new life is still a marvelous and wondrous event. I did downgrade it a bit, however, because he didn't either stop and complete his story at the 17th century or give us a full completion up to the 21st, which left all the material in the later chapters feeling rushed and incomplete. A very enjoyable book - shows you not to take human knowledge for granted and also gives an important story from possibly the greatest era in science. It is somewhat surprising how recently we figured out most of the story on "where babies come from", and how much of it was worked out over a short period during the late 17th century. It's also worth a few good laughs - there are some interesting quotes from the scientist who did the work justifying their "sample collection" that you might not expect in a journal article these days. sem resenhas | adicionar uma resenha
Where do we come from? For thousands of years we really had no clue how living things were created -- great thinkers like Aristotle and Plato had attempted to explain what became known as the problem of 'generation', but neither really had the tools or the insight to solve the mystery. The result was a wealth of weird and wonderful ideas about the components necessary to create new life -- blood, 'vapours', strange pulses in the air. It was also widely accepted that animals could breed different species; the notion that two sheep can only make another sheep is a surprisingly modern idea. But all this confusion changed in a flurry of discovery in the mid-seventeenth century. In just a decade, a group of young scientists in Europe established the existence first of the human egg and then of the human sperm. At last, the building blocks were in place -- although, in one of the great ironies of science, it would be another 150 years before someone worked out how fertilisation actually took place. Focusing on the personalities and rivalries of this extraordinary period, Matthew Cobb has shed new light not just on an under-reported story of science but on our very nature -- and how little we still know about one of the greatest miracles of Nature. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — Carregando... GênerosClassificação decimal de Dewey (CDD)612.6072Technology Medicine and health Human physiology Reproduction; Development; Maturation Reproduction and Generation; Development Consanguinity; IncestClassificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos E.U.A. (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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