HoP 478 This Gland Is Your Gland: Cartesian Science

Peter Adamson· Host0:00

[instrumental music] Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to The History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of the Philosophy Department at King's College London and the LMU in Munich, online at historyofphilosophy.net. Today's episode, This Gland is Your Gland: Cartesian Science. The most obvious way to make a huge impact on science is to make discoveries. This is what we expect from scientists today, honoring their breakthroughs with Nobel Prizes and the like. But it isn't the only way. Though Aristotle did make some genuine discoveries, especially concerning animal anatomy, most of his scientific beliefs were false. He denied that light travels, thought the Earth doesn't move, and that flies and worms generate spontaneously. One especially perplexing case is his claim that women have fewer teeth than men, which seems like it would have been easy for him to check. In fairness, it's been suggested that maybe he did check and that ancient women often had missing teeth due to calcium deficiencies. Yet his various misconceptions did not stop him from becoming the most influential scientist who has ever lived, at least as measured by longevity. Nearly two millennia after Aristotle's death, his views still held sway, and resistance to them provoked cultural and institutional backlash.