Natural history 

is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi,

and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more
towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural
history is called a naturalist or natural historian.
Natural history encompasses scientific research but is not limited to it.[1] It involves the
systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms.[2] So while it dates from
studies in the ancient Greco-Roman world and the mediaeval Arabic world, through to
European Renaissance naturalists working in near isolation, today's natural history is
a cross-discipline umbrella of many specialty sciences; e.g., geobiology has a strong
multidisciplinary nature.

Contents

 1Definitions

o 1.1Before 1900

o 1.2Since 1900

 2History

o 2.1Ancient times

o 2.2Medieval

o 2.3Birth of scientific biology

 3Museums

 4Societies

 5See also

 6References

 7Further reading

 8External links

Definitions[edit]
Before 1900[edit]
The meaning of the English term "natural history" (a calque of the Latin historia naturalis)
has narrowed progressively with time, while, by contrast, the meaning of the related term
"nature" has widened (see also History below).
In antiquity, "natural history" covered essentially anything connected with nature, or used
materials drawn from nature, such as Pliny the Elder's encyclopedia of this title,
published circa 77 to 79 AD, which covers astronomy, geography, humans and
their technology, medicine, and superstition, as well as animals and plants.
Medieval European academics considered knowledge to have two main divisions:
the humanities (primarily what is now known as classics) and divinity, with science studied
largely through texts rather than observation or experiment. The study of nature revived in
the Renaissance, and quickly became a third branch of academic knowledge, itself divided
into descriptive natural history and natural philosophy, the analytical study of nature. In
modern terms, natural philosophy roughly corresponded to modern physics and chemistry,
while natural history included the biological and geological sciences. The two were strongly
associated. During the heyday of the gentleman scientists, many people contributed to both
fields, and early papers in both were commonly read at professional science
society meetings such as the Royal Society and the French Academy of Sciences—both
founded during the 17th century.
Natural history had been encouraged by practical motives, such as Linnaeus' aspiration to
improve the economic condition of Sweden.[3] Similarly, the Industrial Revolution prompted
the development of geology to help find useful mineral deposits.[4]

Since 1900[edit]

A natural history collection in a French public secondary school

Modern definitions of natural history come from a variety of fields and sources, and many of
the modern definitions emphasize a particular aspect of the field, creating a plurality of
definitions with a number of common themes among them. For example, while natural
history is most often defined as a type of observation and a subject of study, it can also be
defined as a body of knowledge, and as a craft or a practice, in which the emphasis is
placed more on the observer than on the observed.[5]
Definitions from biologists often focus on the scientific study of individual organisms in their
environment, as seen in this definition by Marston Bates: "Natural history is the study of
animals and Plants—of organisms. ... I like to think, then, of natural history as the study of
life at the level of the individual—of what plants and animals do, how they react to each
other and their environment, how they are organized into larger groupings like populations
and communities"[6] and this more recent definition by D.S. Wilcove and T. Eisner: "The
close observation of organisms—their origins, their evolution, their behavior, and their
relationships with other species".[7]
This focus on organisms in their environment is also echoed by H.W. Greene and J.B.
Losos: "Natural history focuses on where organisms are and what they do in their
environment, including interactions with other organisms. It encompasses changes in
internal states insofar as they pertain to what organisms do".[8]
Some definitions go further, focusing on direct observation of organisms in their
environments, both past and present, such as this one by G.A. Bartholomew: "A student of
natural history, or a naturalist, studies the world by observing plants and animals directly.
Because organisms are functionally inseparable from the environment in which they live
and because their structure and function cannot be adequately interpreted without knowing
some of their evolutionary history, the study of natural history embraces the study of fossils
as well as physiographic and other aspects of the physical environment".[9]
A common thread in many definitions of natural history is the inclusion of a descriptive
component, as seen in a recent definition by H.W. Greene: "Descriptive ecology and
ethology".[10] Several authors have argued for a more expansive view of natural history,
including S. Herman, who defines the field as "the scientific study of plants and animals in
their natural environments. It is concerned with levels of organization from the individual
organism to the ecosystem, and stresses identification, life history, distribution, abundance,
and inter-relationships.
It often and appropriately includes an esthetic component",[11] and T. Fleischner, who
defines the field even more broadly, as "A practice of intentional, focused attentiveness and
receptivity to the more-than-human world, guided by honesty and accuracy".[12] These
definitions explicitly include the arts in the field of natural history, and are aligned with the
broad definition outlined by B. Lopez, who defines the field as the "Patient interrogation of a
landscape" while referring to the natural history knowledge of the Eskimo (Inuit).[13]
A slightly different framework for natural history, covering a similar range of themes, is also
implied in the scope of work encompassed by many leading natural history museums,
which often include elements of anthropology, geology, paleontology, and astronomy along
with botany and zoology,[14][15] or include both cultural and natural components of the world.[16]
The plurality of definitions for this field has been recognized as both a weakness and a
strength, and a range of definitions has recently been offered by practitioners in a recent
collection of views on natural history.[17]

History[edit]
Ancient times[edit]

Blackberry from the sixth-century Vienna Dioscurides manuscript

Natural history begins with Aristotle and other ancient philosophers who analyzed the
diversity of the natural world. Natural history was understood by Pliny the Elder to cover
anything that could be found in the world, including living things, geology, astronomy,
technology, art, and humanity.[18]
De Materia Medica was written between 50 and 70 AD by Pedanius Dioscorides, a Roman
physician of Greek origin. It was widely read for more than 1,500 years until supplanted in
the Renaissance, making it one of the longest-lasting of all natural history books.
From the ancient Greeks until the work of Carl Linnaeus and other 18th-century naturalists,
a major concept of natural history was the scala naturae or Great Chain of Being, an
arrangement of minerals, vegetables, more primitive forms of animals, and more complex
life forms on a linear scale of supposedly increasing perfection, culminating in our species.
[19]

Medieval[edit]
Natural history was basically static through the Middle Ages in Europe—although in
the Arabic and Oriental world, it proceeded at a much brisker pace. From the 13th century,
the work of Aristotle was adapted rather rigidly into Christian philosophy, particularly
by Thomas Aquinas, forming the basis for natural theology. During the Renaissance,
scholars (herbalists and humanists, particularly) returned to direct observation of plants and
animals for natural history, and many began to accumulate large collections of exotic
specimens and unusual monsters. Leonhart Fuchs was one of the three founding fathers of
botany, along with Otto Brunfels and Hieronymus Bock. Other important contributors to the
field were Valerius Cordus, Konrad Gesner (Historiae animalium), Frederik Ruysch,
and Gaspard Bauhin.[20] The rapid increase in the number of known organisms prompted
many attempts at classifying and organizing species into taxonomic groups, culminating in
the system of the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus.[20]
The British historian of Chinese science Joseph Needham calls Li Shizhen "the 'uncrowned
king' of Chinese naturalists", and his Bencao gangmu "undoubtedly the greatest scientific
achievement of the Ming". His works translated to many languages direct or influence many
scholars and researchers.[citation needed]

Birth of scientific biology[edit]

Georges Buffon is best remembered for his Histoire naturelle, a 44-volume encyclopedia describing
quadrupeds, birds, minerals, and some science and technology. Reptiles and fish were covered in
supplements by Bernard Germain de Lacépède.
A significant contribution to English natural history was made by parson-naturalists such
as Gilbert White, William Kirby, John George Wood, and John Ray, who wrote about
plants, animals, and other aspects of nature. Many of these men wrote about nature to
make the natural theology argument for the existence or goodness of God.[21] Since early
modern times, however, a great number of women made contributions to natural history,
particularly in the field of botany, be it as authors, collectors, or illustrators.[22]
In modern Europe, professional disciplines such as botany,
geology, mycology, palaeontology, physiology, and zoology were formed. Natural history,
formerly the main subject taught by college science professors, was increasingly scorned
by scientists of a more specialized manner and relegated to an "amateur" activity, rather
than a part of science proper. In Victorian Scotland, the study of natural history was
believed to contribute to good mental health.[23] Particularly in Britain and the United States,
this grew into specialist hobbies such as the study of birds, butterflies, seashells
(malacology/conchology), beetles, and wildflowers; meanwhile, scientists tried to define a
unified discipline of biology (though with only partial success, at least until the modern
evolutionary synthesis). Still, the traditions of natural history continue to play a part in the
study of biology, especially ecology (the study of natural systems involving living organisms
and the inorganic components of the Earth's biosphere that support them), ethology (the
scientific study of animal behavior), and evolutionary biology (the study of the relationships
between life forms over very long periods of time), and re-emerges today as integrative
organismal biology.
Amateur collectors and natural history entrepreneurs played an important role in building
the world's large natural history collections, such as the Natural History Museum, London,
and the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.
Three of the greatest English naturalists of the 19th century, Henry Walter Bates, Charles
Darwin, and Alfred Russel Wallace—who all knew each other—each made natural history
travels that took years, collected thousands of specimens, many of them new to science,
and by their writings both advanced knowledge of "remote" parts of the world—the Amazon
basin, the Galápagos Islands, and the Malay archipelago, among others—and in so doing
helped to transform biology from a descriptive to a theory-based science.
The understanding of "Nature" as "an organism and not as a mechanism" can be traced to
the writings of Alexander von Humboldt (Prussia, 1769–1859). Humboldt's copious writings
and research were seminal influences for Charles Darwin, Simón Bolívar, Henry David
Thoreau, Ernst Haeckel, and John Muir.[24]

Museums[edit]
Further information: List of natural history museums
Natural history museums, which evolved from cabinets of curiosities, played an important
role in the emergence of professional biological disciplines and research programs.
Particularly back in the 19th century, scientists began to use their natural history collections
as teaching tools for advanced students and the basis for their
own morphological research.

Societies[edit]

The monument of Jan Czekanowski, a president of Polish Copernicus Society of Naturalists (1923–

1924), in Szczecin, Poland
The term "natural history" alone, or sometimes together with archaeology, forms the name
of many national, regional, and local natural history societies that maintain records
for animals (including birds (ornithology), insects (entomology)
and mammals (mammalogy)), fungi (mycology), plants (botany), and other organisms.
They may also have geological and microscopical sections.
Examples of these societies in Britain include the Natural History Society of
Northumbria founded in 1829, London Natural History Society (1858), Birmingham Natural
History Society (1859), British Entomological and Natural History Society founded in
1872, Glasgow Natural History Society, Manchester Microscopical and Natural History
Society established in 1880, Whitby Naturalists' Club founded in 1913,[25] Scarborough Field
Naturalists' Society and the Sorby Natural History Society, Sheffield, founded in 1918.
[26]
 The growth of natural history societies was also spurred due to the growth of British
colonies in tropical regions with numerous new species to be discovered. Many civil
servants took an interest in their new surroundings, sending specimens back to museums
in the Britain. (See also: Indian natural history)
Societies in other countries include the American Society of Naturalists and Polish
Copernicus Society of Naturalists.
See also[edit]

 Earth sciences portal

 Ecology portal

 Environment portal

 Evolutionary biology portal

 Evolutionary history of life

 History of evolutionary thought