Editing Aristotle (section)

=== Modern era ===
==== Early Modern science ====

[[File:William Harvey ( 1578-1657) Venenbild.jpg| thumb|[[William Harvey]]'s ''{{lang|la|[[De Motu Cordis]]}}'', 1628, showed that the [[circulation of the blood|blood circulated]], contrary to classical thinking.]]

In the [[early modern period]], scientists such as [[William Harvey]] in England and [[Galileo Galilei]] in Italy reacted against the theories of Aristotle and other classical era thinkers like [[Galen]], establishing new theories based to some degree on observation and experiment. Harvey demonstrated the [[circulation of the blood]], establishing that the heart functioned as a pump rather than being the seat of the soul and the controller of the body's heat, as Aristotle thought.{{sfn|Aird|2011|pp=118–29}} Galileo used more doubtful arguments to displace Aristotle's physics, proposing that bodies all fall at the same speed whatever their weight.{{sfn|Machamer|2017}}

==== 18th and 19th-century science ====

The English mathematician [[George Boole]] fully accepted Aristotle's logic, but decided "to go under, over, and beyond" it with his system of [[Boolean algebra|algebraic logic]] in his 1854 book ''[[The Laws of Thought]]''. This gives logic a mathematical foundation with equations, enables it to solve equations as well as check [[Validity (logic)|validity]], and allows it to handle a wider class of problems by expanding propositions of any number of terms, not just two.{{sfn|Boole|2003}}

[[Charles Darwin]] regarded Aristotle as the most important contributor to the subject of biology. In an 1882 letter he wrote that "Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle".<ref>{{cite book |last=Wilkins |first=John |title=Species: a history of the idea |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |publication-place=Berkeley |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-520-27139-5 |oclc=314379168 |page=15}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Pasipoularides |first=Ares |title=The heart's vortex: intracardiac blood flow phenomena |publisher=People's Medical Publishing House |publication-place=Shelton, Connecticut |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-60795-033-2 |oclc=680621287 |page=118}}</ref> Also, in later editions of the book "[[On the Origin of Species]]', Darwin traced evolutionary ideas as far back as Aristotle;<ref>{{harvnb|Darwin|1872|p=[http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=F391&pageseq=18 xiii]}}</ref> the text he cites is a summary by Aristotle of the ideas of the earlier Greek philosopher [[Empedocles]].<ref>{{cite web |author=Aristotle |title=Physics |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.2.ii.html |access-date=23 April 2009 |publisher=translated by Hardie, R. P. and Gayle, R. K. and hosted by MIT's Internet Classics Archive}}</ref>

==== Present science ====

The philosopher [[Bertrand Russell]] claims that "almost every serious intellectual advance has had to begin with an attack on some Aristotelian doctrine". Russell calls Aristotle's ethics "repulsive", and labelled his logic "as definitely antiquated as Ptolemaic astronomy". Russell states that these errors make it difficult to do historical justice to Aristotle, until one remembers what an advance he made upon all of his predecessors.{{sfn|Russell|1972|loc=Chapter 19 "Aristotle's Metaphysics"}}

The Dutch historian of science [[Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis]] writes that Aristotle and his predecessors showed the difficulty of science by "proceed[ing] so readily to frame a theory of such a general character" on limited evidence from their senses.{{sfn|Dijksterhuis|1969|p=72}} In 1985, the biologist [[Peter Medawar]] could still state in "pure seventeenth century"{{sfn|Leroi|2015|p=353}} tones that Aristotle had assembled "a strange and generally speaking rather tiresome farrago of hearsay, imperfect observation, wishful thinking and credulity amounting to downright gullibility".{{sfn|Leroi|2015|p=353}}{{sfn|Medawar|Medawar|1984|p=28}}

Zoologists have frequently mocked Aristotle for errors and unverified secondhand reports. However, modern observation has confirmed several of his more surprising claims.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ogilvie |first=Brian W. |chapter=Zoology |editor-last=Grafton |editor-first=Anthony |editor2-last=Most |editor2-first=Glenn W. |editor3-last=Settis |editor3-first=Salvatore |title=The Classical Tradition |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |date=2010 |isbn=978-0-674-07227-5 |pages=1000–1001}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Forbes |first=Peter |date=2009 |title=[[Dazzled and Deceived: Mimicry and Camouflage]] |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=978-0-300-12539-9 |pages=236–239}}</ref>{{sfn|Leroi|2015|pages=137–138}} Aristotle's work remains largely unknown to modern scientists, though zoologists sometimes mention him as the father of biology{{sfn|Leroi|2015|page=352}} or in particular of [[marine biology]].<ref>{{cite web |title=A History of the Study of Marine Biology |url=http://marinebio.org/oceans/history-of-marine-biology/ |publisher=MarineBio Conservation Society |access-date=19 November 2016}}</ref> Practising zoologists are unlikely to adhere to Aristotle's chain of being, but its influence is still perceptible in the use of the terms "lower" and "upper" to designate taxa such as groups of plants.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rigato |first1=Emanuele |last2=Minelli |first2=Alessandro |title=The great chain of being is still here |journal=Evolution: Education and Outreach |date=28 June 2013 |volume=6 |issue=18 |pages=1–6 |doi=10.1186/1936-6434-6-18 |url=http://www.evolution-outreach.com/content/6/1/18 |issn=1936-6434 |doi-access=free}}</ref> The evolutionary biologist [[Armand Marie Leroi]] has reconstructed Aristotle's biology,{{sfn|Leroi|2015}} while [[Tinbergen's four questions|Niko Tinbergen's four questions]], based on Aristotle's four causes, are used to analyse [[animal behaviour]]; they examine [[function (biology)|function]], [[phylogeny]], [[mechanism (biology)|mechanism]], and [[ontogeny]].{{sfn|MacDougall-Shackleton|2011|pp=2076–2085}}{{sfn|Hladký|Havlíček|2013}} The concept of [[Homology (biology)|homology]] began with Aristotle;<ref>{{cite book |last=Panchen |first=A. L. |chapter=Homology—History of a Concept |title=Novartis Foundation Symposium 222 – Homology |series=Novartis Foundation Symposia |volume=222 |year=1999 |pmid=10332750 |pages=5–18; discussion 18–23 |doi=10.1002/9780470515655.ch2 |isbn=978-0-470-51565-5}}</ref> the [[evo-devo|evolutionary developmental biologist]] [[Lewis I. Held]] commented that he would be interested in the concept of [[deep homology]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Held |first1=Lewis I. |author-link=Lewis I. Held |title=Deep Homology?: Uncanny Similarities of Humans and Flies Uncovered by Evo-Devo |date=February 2017 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-316-60121-1 |page=viii}}</ref> In [[systematics]] too, recent studies suggest that Aristotle made important contributions in [[taxonomy]] and [[biological nomenclature]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Voultsiadou |first1=Eleni |last2=Vafidis |first2=Dimitris |title=Marine invertebrate diversity in Aristotle's zoology |journal=Contributions to Zoology |date=1 January 2007 |volume=76 |issue=2 |pages=103–120 |doi=10.1163/18759866-07602004 |s2cid=55152069 |url=https://doi.org/10.1163/18759866-07602004 |issn=1875-9866}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ganias |first1=Kostas |last2=Mezarli |first2=Charikleia |last3=Voultsiadou |first3=Eleni |title=Aristotle as an ichthyologist: Exploring Aegean fish diversity 2,400 years ago |journal=Fish and Fisheries |date=November 2017 |volume=18 |issue=6 |pages=1038–1055 |doi=10.1111/faf.12223 |bibcode=2017AqFF...18.1038G |url=https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12223 |issn=1467-2960}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Laurin |first1=Michel |last2=Humar |first2=Marcel |title=Phylogenetic signal in characters from Aristotle's History of Animals |journal=Comptes Rendus Palevol |year=2022 |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=1–16 |doi=10.5852/cr-palevol2022v21a1 |s2cid=245863171 |language=fr |doi-access=free}}</ref>