Evolution of the Brain - Essay Example

Arran Gare (2002) traces the key development of ecology to the tradition of plant geography of Herder and Goethe and most significantly to Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) who saw “nature as a process of becoming” and established the development of “anti-mechanistic naturalism” (p.135). Nature’s dynamic condition was already recognized. All forms of life were seen as “self-organizing” and interdependent with each other and their environment (p.135). This concept became prevalent in society even before Ernst Haeckel came up with the term “ecology” in 1866 (Allaby 2000, p. 13). The view of ‘underlying causal unity’ within the world also inspired the idea that energy is conserved by the transformation of nature (Kuhn, 1977) (qt.

in Gare 2002, p. 135). Most significantly, Von Humboldt’s work inspired the further study of organisms by Darwin, Lyell, Agassiz, Thoreau and Edward Suess who coined the term “biosphere” in 1875 (p.135).Allaby (2000) discussed that in the 18th and 19th century, development of ecology was influenced by the concept of ‘economy of nature’ based on evolution theory and ‘balance of nature’ derived from natural theology and German Romanticism. Charles Darwin in his 1859 book Origin of Species explained that “all of nature appears to be an orderly, well-regulated system of interactions among plants and animals and with their environment”.

Darwin asserted that “the appearance of the organization was the result of a natural process of evolution based on a struggle for existence by each individual organism” (p.13). While according to natural theology, God “endowed all plants and animals with needs and the means to satisfy them as to guarantee that harmony among them would be preserved”. Nevertheless, the concept of “balance of nature” and its corresponding notion of static ecosystems is now considered by science as a romantic myth.