ALPHABETICAL BRAIN™ VOCABULARY HUMANIST GALAXY OF SECULAR SCIENCE STARS EDWARD DOLNICK August 19, 2021 SEEDS OF LIFE: From Aristotle to da Vinci, from Shark's Teeth to Frog's Pants, the Long and Strange Quest to Discover Where Babies Come From by Edward Dolnick. Basic Books, 2017 (i-ix, 309 pages) Quote = "This science history book is the remarkable and rollicking story of how a series of blundering geniuses and brilliant amateurs struggled for two centuries to discover where, exactly, babies come from. Throughout most of human history, babies were surprises. People knew the basics: men and women had sex, and sometimes babies followed. But beyond that the origins of life were a colossal mystery." (Paraphrased by webmaster from publisher's blurb) BOOK OUTLINE TIME LINE (ix) 1490 C.E. = Leonardo da Vinci makes a cutaway drawing of a man and woman having sex. 1492 C.E. = Columbus sets sail. 1543 C.E. = Andreas Vesalius publishes one of the masterpieces in the history of anatomy. 1543 C.E. = Copernicus says that the Earth goes around the sun, not vice verso. 1628 C.E. = William Harvey shows that the heart is a pump. 1651 C.E. = Harvey declares that “everything comes from the egg.” 1669 C.E. = Jan Swammerdam argues that God created all the generations of animals at the dawn of time, one inside the next like Russian dolls. 1672 C.E. = Regnier de Graaf (almost) proves that female mammals have eggs. 1674 C.E. = Antony van Leeuwenhoek sees countless “tiny animals,” invisible to the naked eye, in a drop of pond water. 1677 C.E. = Leeuwenhoek sees spermatozoa by the millions. 1694 C.E. = Nicolaas Hartsoeker draws a miniature man inside a sperm cell. 1741 C.E. = Abraham Tremnley cuts a tiny organism called a hydra into pieces. Miraculously, each piece grows into a complete creature. 1745 C.E. = French scientists propose a new theory of how living organisms develop: life is regulated not by clockwork but by a Force akin to gravity. l752 C.E. = Ben Franklin flies a kite during a thunderstorm and proves that lightning is electrical. 1770 C.E. = Lazzaro Spallanzani puts male frogs in boxer shorts. 1776 C.E. = American Revolution begins. 1791 C.E. = Luigi Galvani zaps frog legs with electricity. 1818 C.E. = Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein. 1827 C.E. = Karl von Baer becomes the first to see a mammal’s egg. 1837 C.E. = Queen Victoria takes the throne. 1830s/1860s C.E. = Cell theory emerges. 1861/1865 C.E. = The American Civil War lasts four long years. 1875 C.E. = Oscar Hertwig witnesses the union of sperm and egg. note = Numbers in parentheses refer to pages PROLOGUE — England in the early 1630s C.E. (1-4) PART 1 — PEERING INTO THE BODY (5-77) 1) ONWARD TO GLORY (7-14) 2) HIDDEN IN DEEP NIGHT (15-22) 3) SWALLOWING STONES AND DRINKING DEW (23-36) 4) UNMOORED IN TIME (37-51) 5) "DOUBLE, DOUBLE TOIL AND TROUBLE" (52-63) 6) DOOR A OR DOOR B? (64-77) PART 2 — THE SEARCH FOR THE EGG (79-122) 7) MISSING — ONE UNIVERSE: Reward to Finder (81-88) 8) SHARKS' TEETH AND COWS' EGGS (89-95) 9) THE EGG, AT LAST (96-103) 10) A WORLD IN A DROP OF WATER (104-113) 11) "ANIMALS OF THE SEMEN" (114-122) PART 3 — RUSSIAN DOLLS (123-205) 12) DOLLS WITHIN DOLLS (125-137) 13) THE MESSAGE IN GOD'S FINE PRINT (138-147) 14) SEA OF TROUBLES (148-159) 15) THE RABBIT WOMAN OF GODLIMAN (160-171) 16) "ALL IN PIECES, ALL COHERENCE GONE" (172-184) 17) THE CATHEDRAL THAT BUILT ITSELF (185-196) 18) A VASE IN SILHOUETTE (197-205) PART 4 — THE CLOCKWORK TOPPLES AND A NEW THEORY RISES (207-264) 19) FROGS IN SILK PANTS (209-219) note = "Spontaneous generation" --- Mid 1700s (215-216) note = Redi's experiment and conclusion that "Life came from Life" A landmark in the history of science on page 215 (214-215) note = Experiments of Spallanzani, frogs and dogs (222) - Chapters 19-20 (220+) 20) A DROP OF VENOM (220-227) 21) THE CRAZE OF THE CENTURY (228-237) note = Ben Franklin and lightening and church’s getting hit by lightening bolts and killing bell ringers! (234-235) 22) "I SAW THE DULL YELLOW EYE OF THE CREATURE OPEN" (238-245) 23) THE NOSE OF THE SPHINX (246-251) 24) "THE GAME IS AFOOT" (252-257) 25) CAUGHT! (258-264) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (265) ILLUSTRATION CREDITS (266) NOTES (267-288) BIBLIOGRAPHY (289-296) INDEX (297-309) Analogies Anatomists Anatomy Animals Aristotle Babies Beliefs Biologists Biology Birth Blood Body Cells Children Code Conception Contraception Cosmos Crick, Francis Cultures Curiosity da Vinci, Leonardo Darwin, Charles Death Design Development, human Discoveries Dissection Doctrines Eggs Electricity Embryos Experiments Facts Fertilization Frogs Genetics Genitals God Harvey, William Heart Heredity Hooke, Robert Human body Humans Insects Language Laws Leeuwenhoek, Antony van Lenses Life Locke, John Machines Mathematics Mating Medicine Menstruation Microscopes Model Music Nature Observations Organisms Ovaries Ovists Parents Penises Plants Power Performationists Pregnancy Religion Reproduction Riddles Royal Society Science Scientists Semen Sex Spallanzani, Lazzaro Sperm Spermists Spirit Swammerdam, Jan Techniques Testicles Theologians Theories Vesalius, Andreas Women BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH --- Author, Edward Dolnick (unpaged at end of book) AUTHOR NOTES, SUMMARY, AND BOOK DESCRIPTION AUTHOR NOTES = Edward Dolnick is the author of The Forger's Spell, Down the Great Unknown, and the Edgar Award-winning The Rescue Artist. A former chief science writer at the Boston Globe, he has written for the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times Magazine, and many other publications. There are over 130,000 copies of his books in print. He lives with his wife near Washington, D.C. SUMMARY = The book is a witty and rousing history of science that explains why cracking the code of human conception took centuries of wild theories, misogynist blunders, and ludicrous mistakes. It presents our greatest pioneer scientists struggling-against their perceptions, their religious beliefs, and their deep-seated prejudices to discover from where we have come. BOOK DESCRIPTION = The book is the remarkable and rollicking story of how a series of blundering geniuses and brilliant amateurs struggled for two centuries to discover where, exactly, babies come from. Throughout most of human history, babies were surprises. People knew the basics: men and women had sex, and sometimes babies followed. But beyond that the origins of life were a colossal mystery. This science history book takes a page from investigative thrillers. The acclaimed science writer, Edward Dolnick, looks to the first real scientists [called "natural philosophers"] as if they were detectives hot on the trail of a bedeviling and urgent mystery. These strange searchers included an Italian surgeon using shark teeth to prove that female reproductive organs were not "failed" male genitalia, and a Catholic priest who designed ingenious miniature pants to prove that frogs required semen to fertilize their eggs. EDITORIAL BOOK REVIEWS LIBRARY JOURNAL REVIEW = While it was common knowledge in the 17th century that babies resulted from men and women having sex, it took some time before people became aware of the nuances of conception and reproduction. Focusing on the years 1650-1875, Dolnick (The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World), former chief science writer for the Boston Globe, narrates a story with many wrong turns and near misses, skillfully tantalizing modern readers with hints of a greater truth obscured by lack of information. He also does an excellent job of explaining the critical role that religion played for early modern biologists. Today, we sometimes think of faith and science as being in opposition to each other, but that was not the case during this period; rather, religion inspired and directed the work of these early scientists. The narrative ends somewhat abruptly in 1875, when egg fertilization was witnessed for the first time. -VERDICT An enlightening and quick read that delves into the details of a topic that readers might think they know all about. Those interested in the early modern period and the history of science in Europe will particularly appreciate this title. -- Cate Hirschbiel, Iwasaki Lib., Emerson Coll., Boston. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY REVIEW = Dolnick (The Clockwork Universe) traces the winding tale of European understanding of conception biology from the 16th through the 19th century, when the merging of sperm and egg was first physically seen. He examines the theories popularized by scientific luminaries in each period, following advances in anatomy, microscopy, and scientific method as well as changes in philosophy about the relationships between men and women, humans and animals, and the living world and God. Dolnick honors the history of ideas that seem ludicrous today, including that of preformation of tiny versions of all human bodies at the beginning of creation, and makes the point that even the most brilliant investigators can miss salient information they don't expect, as when Vesalius observed ovarian follicles a century before de Graaf but dismissed them as irrelevant. Substantive background on the work of such figures as William Harvey and Luigi Galvani may feel like a diversion to readers only interested in reproductive biology, but Dolnick composes a cohesive narrative around his central question while noting its appeal as a side topic to key thinkers in science. -- Philippa Brophy, Sterling Lord Literistic. BOOK LIST REVIEW = In this unexpectedly amusing history, the author investigates a question few readers will have ever considered: When did people figure out where babies come from? Dolnick (The Clockwork Universe, 2011), formerly the chief science writer for the Boston Globe, is well aware that the sexual act itself has been sorted out for centuries, but figuring out just what happened during sex to, sometimes, create a baby is where things got dicey. Dolnick explores all manner of experiments conducted from the seventeenth century forward by a long list of scientists (all male), many aimed at trying to understand just what role women had in the process, other than providing a necessary field for an able man's seed. From the bizarre, including a woman who claimed to have given birth to rabbits, to the divine some scientists insisted that God's hand was a critical component to conception Dolnick follows an array of trails. Combining first-class research and a truly delightful writing style, Dolnick shares his fascination with the history of science and our perception of reproduction in this enlightening and enjoyable read.-- Colleen Mondor, CHOICE REVIEW = This account is informative and entertaining. Dolnick, author and the former chief science writer for The Boston Globe, recounts the story of the eventual discovery of "seeds" that begin with nothing and produce life. The narrative is superb --- a story book account of marginal successes and abysmal failures in the search of aspects that first produce an embryo that eventually grows into an adult. Dolnick's discussion of the individuals working to this end is quite good. He details how a major obstruction to the research was the staunch belief in God as the maker of all, with no errors. The initial successes in research were enabled by the manufacture and then improvement in microscopy. This was followed by curious individuals who refused to give up their research after coming close to success. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek contributed greatly with his microscopic observations --- almost succeeding. A major hurdle in the research was the fact that non-mammalian eggs (e.g., from birds) presented as large and obvious objects, while mammalian eggs were difficult if not impossible to find, and semen was just a fluid with almost magical powers. The ultimate research goal was eventually achieved when "the union of sperm and egg" was observed. This text superbly documents the discovery of the origins of life. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. -- Francis W. Yow, Kenyon College. REMEMBER ALWAYS: You Are Your Adaptable Memory! Click or Tap Star to Return to Humanist Hub RETURN TO THE HUMANIST HUB OF SECULAR SCIENCE STARS ALPHABETICAL BRAIN™ VOCABULARY produced by Infinite Interactive Ideas™