How Aristotle came up with science

Fragment of the book by Arman Marie Leroy "Laguna"

The work of Corpus published the work of the New Zealand scientist Arman Maria Leroy “Laguna”, in which he describes the birth of science. We publish a fragment of the book.

Zeus created a man, Athena - a house, Poseidon - a bull. They ask Moma, God's mockery, to act as a judge and decide whose creation is better. MOM smashes everyone. According to Aesop, a person “does not have a door in the chest, so that there are secret feelings in the heart”, the house “has no strong wheels, and you can’t roll it in it where you want, and from bad neighbors to hide easily”, but the bull is bad in that “the bull’s eye is far from the horns and the bull is not to see where he beats.” An irritated Zeus, who spent a decent time on the creation of a man, expels Moma from Olympus. In the treatise “On parts of animals”, Aristotle retells the plot, but in his version of the MOM, the suggestions that the bull should be on the shoulders, since this is most effective. Aristotle refuses his character: "Impotient is MOM, since he makes such a rebuke." Mom should look for information about the strength and direction of the blow of bull horns. In addition, if the horns were on the shoulders or anywhere else, they would prevent the animal from moving. So they are exactly where they should be: on the head.

This is a classic teleological argument to conditional necessity. Horns are needed to protect, and therefore they are placed at the most suitable body point, albeit subject to other functional restrictions. Aristotle adds the details: about the strength of the horns, that they are solid at the deer, and the bull is hollow, but strengthened at the base, etc. Such reasoning is as adaptation, as much as possible. And again we expect Aristotle, starting to explain why most animals have no horns, will show: the lifestyle of some requires horns, but does not require others. However, instead, Aristotle introduces a number of additional laws related to the bodily economy.

In “Politics”, Aristotle notes that the life of households is reduced to management (who obeys to whom), as well as to the economy (how material wealths are acquired and distributed). Aristotle - for the natural order of things. There is a hierarchy: the owner of the house, his wife, children, slaves, cattle. There is (or must exist) a natural limit of wealth. Stagirit [a native of Stagira, the nickname of Aristotle] extremely negatively refers to cases when someone receives money in excess of the necessary: ​​resale is unnatural, usury is disgusting. In this sense, Aristotle looks like an intellectual despising a bourgeois. The tone of the philosopher is similar to the tone of Cambridge teachers of the 40s. (You recall Frank Raymond Livis): indisputable, moralizing, Puritan.

Aristotle, reflecting on the household, gives examples from the world of animals. And when he writes about animals, he gives examples from the economy: “Nature always provides every thing for those who can use it.” Or: "Nature does nothing excessive and in vain." Or: "What nature takes away in one place, then gives to other parts." Or: “Where there is the opportunity to use two tools for two cases, one does not interfere with the other, nature never acts as blacksmithing the master, making a spit-outfit for cheapness, but only where it is not possible, it uses the same thing for many purposes.” Aristotle needs these principles so that his teleological explanations make sense. However, his plans are not included in his plans: these are axioms. Heraclitus said: "Nature loves to hide." But not from Aristotle! He writes about nature as if she owns a tavern in the neighborhood.

Aristotle doubles the horns in animals. Of course, horns are needed to protect. On the other hand, you can do without horns, and in some cases they even interfere. Aristotle is impressive that the males of the deer annually drop the horns. And it seems to me that he never once watched these ungulates. He talks about the use of horns to protect against predators (hunters could tell him about this), but does not mention that males need horns to competition for females. Perhaps he
I never saw how deer of cf.: “On parts of animals” (II, 2) and “The origin of man and sexual selection” (II, 17). .

The fact that horns are not very useful is reflected in their origin. When animals “build” the body from nutrients, they first create the most important organs for life, using the highest quality nutrition, and if “building materials” remain, they spend them on less important organs. The Aristotelian raging owner has a little bones after a family dinner. Our character throws these bones with a half -dressed cat, collapsing under the door. Actually, a cat is rather an annoying pest and I don’t want to keep it at home, but the children like it, and she catches mice. Horns are like cats: they are cheap, but there is little use from them.

So why not all animals have horns? Aristotle gives two answers. One is fully consistent with the image of a striding owner: animals, as a rule, do not have “extra” organs. Stagiritis notes that animals can protect their large
size, high speed, horns, tusks or fangs. But if the creature already has one means of protection, he does not need the second, since nature does not “do nothing in vain or excessive”.

A different economic principle applies here. In the “animal history”, Aristotle identifies a whole system of associated signs of vigorous four -legged (mammals), including the fact that horned gum animals have a unequal set of teeth in the upper and lower jaw (for example, horses) - the same. The horns and teeth should be strong, and therefore they are mostly from earthy matter. Aristotle assumes that there is a kind of balance between horns and teeth: the body can get either horns or a full set of teeth, but not at once, because “that nature takes in one place, gives other parts this principle still in the course of evolutionary biology. It is used to explain obvious compromises (Trade-offs) between organs or their individual parts. Not so long ago, it was applied to explain the evolution of horns in plate -eared beetles and their compromise coexistence with other head structures. ".

He applies with particular care the principle of resource distribution. Aristotle notes that the horns of large animals are disproportionately large compared to small horns, such as Gazelle Dorkas (the smallest of the gum he knew). The scientist explains this pattern by the fact that in large gum in terms of body weight there are more excess earthy matter. Accordingly, the former can spend more on horns. It affects one of the most important laws demonstrated by living organisms - and still difficult to explain if you build a schedule for the dependence of a certain parameter (length of horns, metabolic rate, life expectancy) on a certain group of related animals (say, mammals), it is often found that the parameter does not correlate with the size of the body, but grows faster or slower. This ratio is allometric (antonym - isometric). It is better described by exposure than a linear function - at least if the axis is not logarithmic. The mathematical apparatus of allometry brought Julian Haxli in the 1920s. XX century. Of course, Aristotle did not use this apparatus, but he clearly noticed and tried to explain the pattern described by him. Many after him tried to do it. Stephen Jay Gold used allometry to explain the monstrous horns of a giant Irish moose, but did not indicate Aristotle's priority as the method. Most likely, Gold simply did not read it. .

Aristotelian nature is economical, but sometimes it is too economical. Many organs have several functions (the elephant trunk in this regard is especially flexible). In addition, Aristotle mentions functional compromises. It is difficult to do a lot well, so it is better to have specialization parts of the animal. According to Stagirite, nature does not act like a blacksmith, which "makes a spit-outfit for cheapness." Most likely, this product is not suitable for the role of Vertel, or for the role of a candlestick. Aristotle also suggests that the most complicated animals should have the most specialized parts.

Such auxiliary principles are an integral part of the Aristotelian explanation of diversity. The fact that nature does nothing in vain explains why the fish has no eyelids, lungs and legs, and why animals with impressive fangs have no beads, and why only animals with root teeth chew food, moving the jaw, and also why the teeth are durable and why they are at all. And the fact that nature gives to one parts that which “takes away” from others explains, for example, why the sharks have no bones, the bears have a long tail, and the birds have a bladder, why the birds have either claws or spurs, but not at once, and also why the prudence has such a strange look. In addition, this explains a large share of the differences in the life cycle, as well as the inevitability of death.

The listed auxiliary principles are a model of the economic structure of the body. The owner of the house has a certain income, due to which he must buy food, equip a home, dress himself and wards. So the animal’s body comes with nutrients, from which it is necessary to build parts of the body and perform functions. Some organs and functions are vital. Others are useful, but not necessary. Vital organs and reproduction have priority in the distribution of food resources, “optional” organs are made of surpluses. In general, animals exist in conditions of hard restriction of resources, and each organ is expensive. This follows, firstly, that the fee for the creation of a particular organ, as a rule, is such that a certain organ does not allow to make. Secondly, animals should be used as efficiently as possible and, thus, try not to create functionally excess organs. The restrictions on the “budget” have to adhere to everyone, however, more excesses are formed in larger animals per unit mass, so they can distinguish more nutrients for the “construction” of optional organs. Finally, although the multifunctional organs are cheap and many animals “choose” them, the specialization of the organs demonstrates that (if possible) it is worthwhile to take the body to the perfect implementation of a single task.

Aristotle does not show this model explicitly. In relation to nutrition, he does not speak of "income", "performance" and "budget". We are talking about the model of his model: one that makes the meaning of most of the Aristotelian auxiliary teleology. The economy since Darwin has been closely intertwined with modern evolutionary biology. Darwin lived in the era of free competition, was a Rantier and absorbed the ideas of Adam Smith and Thomas Maltese. I think that if Aristotle would have learned about Smith and Maltus, he, like Darwin, understood and accepted their simple but deep thoughts, and at the same time took it into service.

Translated from English Svetlana Yastrebova