In Our Time: Science

Aristotle's Biology

02.07.2019 - By BBC Radio 4Play

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Download on the App StoreGet it on Google Play

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the remarkable achievement of Aristotle (384-322BC) in the realm of biological investigation, for which he has been called the originator of the scientific study of life. Known mainly as a philosopher and the tutor for Alexander the Great, who reportedly sent him animal specimens from his conquests, Aristotle examined a wide range of life forms while by the Sea of Marmara and then on the island of Lesbos. Some ideas, such as the the spontaneous generation of flies, did not survive later scrutiny, yet his influence was extraordinary and his work was unequalled until the early modern period. The image above is of the egg and embryo of a dogfish, one of the animals Aristotle described accurately as he recorded their development. With Armand Leroi

Professor of Evolutionary Development Biology at Imperial College London Myrto Hatzimichali

Lecturer in Classics at the University of Cambridge And Sophia Connell

Lecturer in Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London Producer: Simon Tillotson

More episodes from In Our Time: Science