Natural history

Natural History ( also natural history or natural philosophy ) is a generic term for knowledge areas which are nowadays usually assigned to several different types of sciences, primarily the natural sciences. Most definitions include the study of living things (biology, including botany and zoology ); other definitions are expanding the area and include both paleontology, ecology and biochemistry as well as part archeology, geology, astronomy, physics, meteorology, and even to do so.

Natural History in the 18th and 19th centuries

Generally considered one of the natural history of interested as a natural scientist or naturalist. This was a laymen - employment and not a profession substantially. In the 18th century and well into the 19th century, the term natural history used to, as opposed to political or ecclesiastical history to refer to all scientific studies. This broad term is still used today for some museums and societies. Traditionally, the predominantly descriptive natural history of more explanatory natural philosophy was opposed.

Characteristics of natural history are:

• The notion of a " chain of being " God created the maximum number of different things. This form (in particular with regard to their morphology) a continuous sequence, making it easy to find between all the distinct nature center links.
• " The natural history has no temporalized concept of development." Provided by "development" is mentioned, one thinks either in the sense of the Latin evolvere literally the Aus-/Ent-wicklung or unfolding of existing structures or the realization of predetermined options, but not the creation of unpredictable novelty ( as in the modern Darwinian evolutionary biology ).

Known Natural History museums include the Natural History Museum in London, the Museum of Natural History in Berlin, the Natural History Museum in Vienna and the Muséum national d' histoire naturelle in Paris.