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Article ID: CBB001023962

Cell Theory, Specificity, and Reproduction, 1837--1870 (2010)

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Volume: 41
Pages: 225--231

Publication Date: 2010
Edition Details: Part of a special issue, “The Cell as Nexus: Connections between the History, Philosophy and Science of Cell Biology”
Language: English

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Biology Germ cells Cellular biology 19th century Schwann, Theodor Mendel, Gregor Johann Darwin, Charles Robert

The cell is not only the structural, physiological, and developmental unit of life, but also the reproductive one. So far, however, this aspect of the cell has received little attention from historians and philosophers of biology. I will argue that cell theory had far-reaching consequences for how biologists conceptualized the reproductive relationships between germs and adult organisms. Cell theory, as formulated by Theodor Schwann in 1839, implied that this relationship was a specific and lawful one, that is, that germs of a certain kind, all else being equal, would produce adult organisms of the same kind, and vice versa. Questions of preformation and epigenesis took on a new meaning under this presupposition. The question then became one of whether cells could be considered as autonomous agents producing adult organisms of a given species, or whether they were the product of external, organizing forces and thus only a stage in the development of the whole organism. This question became an important issue for nineteenth-century biology. As I will demonstrate, it was the view of cells as autonomous agents which helped both Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel to think of inheritance as a lawful process.

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Article O'Malley, Maureen A.; Müller-Wille, Staffan (2010) The Cell as Nexus: Connections between the History, Philosophy and Science of Cell Biology. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (p. 169). unapi

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