History of the Science

Abstract

Too often history is considered an irrelevant study, but this is an injustice to past and present contributors of knowledge and experience. Paleontology is devoted to elucidating the history of animal and plant development on earth; so also is the history of a science an evolution of events leading to current concepts. Like a proper taxonomic classification, history allows us to understand not just the evolution of a phylum, but the internal individual phylogenies temporally and spacially. As Robert Service points out, the trails to truth are marked by the pioneers of the past, and those of the future by our own works.

“The trails of the world be countless, and most of the trails be tried; You tread on the heels of the many, till you come where the ways divide; By the bones of your brothers ye know it, but oh, to follow you’re fain. By your bones they will follow behind you, till the ways of the world are made plain.” Robert Service