Who were the biggest contributers to biology (in your opinion of course)?

Question

just wondering. =] I'm having a hard time deciding for a project im doing in Biology. Heh.

Answer 1

Oof. So many to choose from:

Aristotle - Created one of the first classifications of animals.
Vesalius - Detailed analysis of human anatomy.
William Harvey - Understanding of blood flow.
Zaccarias Janssen - Inventor of the compound microscope.
Robert Hooke - First to see cells in a microscope.
Anton van Leeuwenhoek - First to observe single-celled organisms.
Joseph Priestly - Discovered oxygen as a gas that plants produce and animals consume.
Thomas Malthus - Wrote on human population growth and food production, and laid the groundwork for evolution.
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck - Wrote on invertegrate taxonomy and developed an early theory of evolution.
Louis Pasteur - Confirmed germ theory of disease, discovered vaccines, process for preventing souring of milk and wine (pasteurization), and lots more.
Charles Darwin - Proposed theory of evolution through natural selection.
Alfred Wallace - Did much to prompt, and then promote, Darwin's publication of his theory.
Gregor Mendel - Discovered the mechanisms of genetics.
William Bateson - Coins the term 'genetics' as the study of inheritance.
Alexander Fleming - Discovers penecillin and antibiotics.
Barbara McClintock - Discovered gene transposition, and the ability for genes to turn characteristics on or off.
Theodosius Dobzhansky - Advanced Darwinian theory into what we now call neo-Darwinism.
Francis Crick, James Watson, and Rosalind Franklin - Discoverers of the double-helix structure of DNA.

And lots of others (I'm tired of typing). ... Haeckel, Haldane, Ernst Mayr (a personal favorite), Lynn Margulis, Jane Goodall (another personal favorite), Stephen Jay Gould (my favorite writer) and Niles Eldredge.

...

But if I had to pick one I'd go with Louis Pasteur, for the sheer number of discoveries, followed closely by Charles Darwin, for the immense importance that the theory of evolution by natural selection has in biology.

Answer 2

Luis Pasteur was a giant. He did some very simple yet powerful experiment that proved some very fundamental idea of biology. He was maybe the first modern experimental biologist.

His classic experiments are very useful to study because they ideally demonstrate the scientific method. He started with a fundamental but unsolved question. Came up with two possible explanations. Set up a simple experiment which would eliminate one of them and came up with clear results that forever changed the way biologists thought

I think he would an excellent choise of a project.

Answer 3

Charles Darwin (Evolution Thoery)

Answer 4

Mendel - he did a bunch of experiments with pea plants to understand heredity
darwin - evolutionary ideas

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