To understand current biological theories, you must know the history of biology!
From ancient Greece to the present, meet scientists exploring the mysteries of life!

The field of 'science' is thought to contain absolute and unchanging truths.
However, scholarship has changed as various theories have emerged.
Natural science is no exception.
The scientific concepts we learn in science class are the result of many scientists debating and verifying each other's ways of understanding the world.
In "Life Science That Changed the World," the author naturally blends modern biological theories with the history of biology, making it easy and fun to learn.
Additionally, the cute illustrations and various visual aids included in the book help readers understand living things in various ways.


The third book in the [Science that Changed the World] series, 『Life Science that Changed the World』, begins with the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates.
The doctors' struggle to understand how the human body moves and why it becomes ill has been passed down through generations, giving rise to the theory of blood circulation and vaccines.
As the Age of Exploration began and new creatures entered Europe, further changes and advancements occurred in biology.
Linnaeus struggled to find a proper way to classify these creatures, and Darwin presented the theory of evolution, which states that creatures of different appearances all descend from the same ancestor.
Advances in other scientific fields, such as physics, chemistry, and earth science, have also had a significant impact on biological research and have been used in DNA research.
In this way, biology has developed in close relationship with human life and society.
Let's take a look at the history of scientists critiquing and accepting existing biological theories, conducting new experiments, and exploring the mysteries of life!

It is often said that in order to understand the present and predict the future, we must first know the past.
We study history from Gojoseon to the present to analyze the past and understand the present.
The same goes for the history of science.
We need to know the history of science to properly understand current scientific theories.
There are no right answers in the history of science.
The history of science is an academic discipline that uses various sources to find the historical meaning of various scientific events, and there are various perspectives on historical interpretation.
When studying the history of science, the importance of historical events and their interpretations can vary depending on one's perspective.

--- p.8~9, from the author's note

Before the 17th century, Europeans knew of only about 6,000 species of living things.
This is a very small number compared to the fact that there are about 2 million species of living things that we currently know of.
However, during the Age of Exploration, as Europeans began to explore various parts of the Earth using their advanced navigational technology, information about new creatures began to pour into Europe.
In the 18th century, Europeans knew more than twice as many species as previous generations.
As naturalists who study plants, animals, and minerals encounter a large number of new species, they have been struggling with how to record and classify information about living things.
Naturalists felt the need for a new method of recording life realistically.
They sought to create a system that could classify organisms quickly, accurately, and systematically.
These concerns of naturalists led to the birth of modern natural history research.

--- p.52, from “Chapter 2 Linnaeus, Creating Rules for Classifying Living Things”

Although many people enthusiastically accepted Darwin's theory, there was also considerable opposition.
It is often assumed that religion was at the center of opposition, and that all religious people would oppose evolution.
But this is a misunderstanding.
Rather, many religious people believed that Darwin's theory of evolution was evidence that God was continually creating living things.
Conversely, not all scientists welcomed the theory of evolution.
Many scientists failed to accept Darwin's core concept of natural selection.
In fact, this was a very natural phenomenon at the time.
To understand natural selection, one must understand the concepts of mutation and heredity, but genetics was not yet developed at the time.

--- p.138, from “Chapter 4 Living Things Have Been Changing?”

The following year, at the age of 58, Pasteur attempted to develop a vaccine against anthrax and succeeded.
Pasteur boasted about his invention of a vaccine against anthrax, and a displeased veterinarian suggested a large-scale public experiment.
The open trial was conducted at Pouilly-le-Fort, where the veterinarian's farm is located.

On May 5, 1881, Pasteur injected anthrax vaccine into 24 sheep, 6 cows, and 1 lamb.
And then two weeks later, I had another vaccine shot.
On May 31, both vaccinated and unvaccinated animals were injected with anthrax.
The experiment, which was conducted in front of a crowd of over 150 people, ended in victory for Pasteur.
All the animals that received the vaccine survived, but all the animals that did not receive the vaccine died.

--- p.174~175, from “Chapter 5: The Never-ending Battle with Disease”

Mendel presented his findings at the Natural History Society in Brno in 1865.
It is said that at the time of his announcement, no one raised any objections to Mendel's announcement because no one understood the results of his experiments.
Mendel summarized his research results in a 44-page paper titled “Experiments on Plant Hybridization,” which he published in the Brno Journal of Natural Sciences.
Mendel also made 40 copies of his paper and sent them to various biologists in Europe.
But Mendel's paper remained largely unread.
There are several reasons why Mendel's work was ignored.
First, Mendel was completely unknown to the scientific community at the time.
Scientists thought of Mendel only as a monk and did not recognize him as a scientist.
Second, at that time, scientists' main focus was on the theory of evolution.
Because it was not long after Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, scientists' attention was focused on the theory of evolution, and Mendel's genetic research seemed relatively trivial.

--- p.200, from “Chapter 6 How do children resemble their parents?”

The process by which Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA is a good example of how the exchange of information among researchers plays a crucial role in the creation of new scientific knowledge.
Compare this to Linus Pauling, who many expected to discover the structure of DNA.
Pauling, who was unable to see the latest X-ray diffraction images of DNA for political reasons, was experiencing repeated failures.
During this time, Watson and Crick were able to obtain the latest information by interacting with the research team at University College London who were studying the same subject and attending conferences, and based on this, they were able to interpret the structure of DNA.

--- p.240, from “Chapter 7 Uncover the Identity of Genetic Material!”