Editing Vitalism (section)

===20th century===

[[Hans Driesch]] (1867–1941) interpreted his experiments as showing that life is not run by physicochemical laws.<ref name="DevBio">{{Cite web|url=http://7e.devbio.com/article.php?ch=10&id=110|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20061031180529/http://7e.devbio.com/article.php?ch=10&id=110|url-status=dead|title=Developmental Biology 8e Online: A Selective History of Induction|archivedate=October 31, 2006}}</ref> His main argument was that when one cuts up an embryo after its first division or two, each part grows into a complete adult. Driesch's reputation as an experimental biologist deteriorated as a result of his vitalistic theories, which scientists have seen since his time as pseudoscience.<ref name="DevBio" /><ref name=ps>{{cite book |last=Dyde |first=Sean |editor1-last=Normandin |editor1-first=Sebastian |editor2-last=Wolfe |editor2-first= T. Charles |title=Vitalism and the Scientific Image in Post-Enlightenment Life Science, 1800–2010 |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=EQVAAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA104 |year=2013 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-94-007-2445-7 |page=104 |chapter=Chapter 5: Life and the Mind in Nineteenth-Century Britain |quote=In medicine and biology, vitalism has been seen as a philosophically-charged term, a pseudoscientific gloss that corrupted scientific practice …}}</ref> Vitalism is a superseded scientific hypothesis, and the term is sometimes used as a [[pejorative]] [[epithet]].<ref>{{Cite journal|url=http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=aop.004.0041a|title=Psychic Energy: A Historical Perspective|first=R. M.|last=Galatzer-Levy|date=August 7, 1976|journal=Ann. Psychoanal.|volume=4|pages=41–61|via=PEP Web}}</ref> [[Ernst Mayr]] (1904–2005) wrote:
{{quote|It would be ahistorical to ridicule vitalists. When one reads the writings of one of the leading vitalists like Driesch one is forced to agree with him that many of the basic problems of biology simply cannot be solved by a philosophy as that of Descartes, in which the organism is simply considered a machine... The logic of the critique of the vitalists was impeccable.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Mayr|first1=Ernst|date=2002|url= http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/e01_2/autonomy.htm |title=BOTANY ONLINE: Ernst MAYR: Walter Arndt Lecture: The Autonomy of Biology |access-date=2006-09-24 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060926210457/http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/e01_2/autonomy.htm |archive-date=2006-09-26 }}</ref>}}
{{quote|Vitalism has become so disreputable a belief in the last fifty years that no biologist alive today would want to be classified as a vitalist. Still, the remnants of vitalist thinking can be found in the work of [[Alistair Hardy]], [[Sewall Wright]], and [[Charles Birch]], who seem to believe in some sort of nonmaterial principle in organisms.<ref>Ernst Mayr ''Toward a new philosophy of biology: observations of an evolutionist'' 1988, p. 13. {{ISBN|978-0674896666}}.</ref>}}

Other vitalists included [[Johannes Reinke]] and [[Oscar Hertwig]]. Reinke used the word ''neovitalism'' to describe his work, claiming that it would eventually be verified through experimentation, and that it was an improvement over the other vitalistic theories. The work of Reinke influenced [[Carl Jung]].<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.academia.edu/6789277|title=Jung's concept of die Dominanten (the Dominants) (1997)|first=Richard|last=Noll|via=www.academia.edu}}</ref>

[[John Scott Haldane]] adopted an anti-mechanist approach to biology and an [[idealist]] philosophy early on in his career. Haldane saw his work as a vindication of his belief that [[teleology]] was an essential concept in biology. His views became widely known with his first book ''Mechanism, life and personality'' in 1913.<ref name="Peter J. Bowler 2001, pp. 168">Bowler, Peter J. Reconciling science and religion: the debate in early-twentieth-century Britain, 2001, pp. 168–169. {{ISBN|978-0226068589}}.</ref> Haldane borrowed arguments from the vitalists to use against mechanism; however, he was not a vitalist. Haldane treated the organism as fundamental to biology: "we perceive the organism as a self-regulating entity", "every effort to analyze it into components that can be reduced to a mechanical explanation violates this central experience".<ref name="Peter J. Bowler 2001, pp. 168" /> The work of Haldane was an influence on [[organicism]]. Haldane stated that a purely mechanist interpretation could not account for the characteristics of life. Haldane wrote a number of books in which he attempted to show the invalidity of both vitalism and mechanist approaches to science. Haldane explained:

{{quote|We must find a different theoretical basis of biology, based on the observation that all the phenomena concerned tend towards being so coordinated that they express what is normal for an adult organism.|<ref name="Mark A. Bedau 2010, p. 95" />}}

By 1931, biologists had "almost unanimously abandoned vitalism as an acknowledged belief."<ref name="Mark A. Bedau 2010, p. 95">{{cite book |title=The Nature of Life: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives from Philosophy and Science|editor1-first=Mark A. |editor1-last=Bedau|editor1-link=Mark Bedau |editor2-first=Carol E.|editor2-last=Cleland |editor2-link= Carol Cleland |chapter=The Decline of Vitalism |first=Ernst |last=Mayr |author-link=Ernst Mayr |pages=93–95|quote=Yet considering how dominant vitalism was in biology and for how long a period it prevailed, it is surprising how rapidly and completely it collapsed. The last support of vitalism as a viable concept in biology disappeared about 1930." (p.&nbsp;94) From p.&nbsp;95: "Vitalism survived even longer in the writings of philosophers than it did in the writings of physicists. But so far as I know, there are no vitalists among the philosophers of biology who started publishing after 1965. Nor do I know of a single reputable living biologist who still supports straightforward vitalism. The few late twentieth-century biologists with vitalist leanings (A. Hardy, S. Wright, A. Portmann) are no longer alive. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L3ycvNfa320C&pg=PA93 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2010 |isbn=9781139488655}}</ref>