Hans Driesch facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch
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| Born | 28 October 1867 |
| Died | 17 April 1941 (aged 73) |
| Citizenship | German |
| Known for | Developmental biology Neo-vitalist philosophy of entelechy Lebensphilosophie Equifinality |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biology and philosophy |
Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch (born October 28, 1867 – died April 17, 1941) was a German biologist and philosopher. He came from Bad Kreuznach. He is best known for his early experiments with embryos and for his idea of "entelechy," which was a kind of vitalism. Some people also say he performed the first artificial "cloning" of an animal in the 1880s. This depends on how you define cloning.
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Early Life and Studies
Hans Driesch went to school at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums. In 1886, he started studying medicine at the University of Freiburg. He learned from a famous scientist named August Weismann. The next year, in 1887, he went to the University of Jena. There, he studied with other important scientists like Ernst Haeckel and Oscar Hertwig.
In 1888, Driesch also studied physics and chemistry at the University of Munich. He earned his doctorate degree in 1889. He traveled a lot for his studies and to give lectures. He visited places like Plymouth, India, Zurich, and Leipzig. In 1894, he published a book in Leipzig called Analytic Theory of Organic Development. He was interested in many subjects, including math, philosophy, physics, and biology. He married Margarete Relfferschneidt, and they had two children.
Amazing Experiments with Embryos
Starting in 1891, Driesch worked at the Marine Biological Station in Naples, Italy. He stayed there until 1901, doing experiments and trying to understand his results. He looked into old and new philosophy to find a good way to explain what he saw. Eventually, he used an idea from the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle called teleology, which means things have a purpose. He also used the idea of entelechy.
Driesch was influenced by his teacher, Ernst Haeckel. He decided to test the ideas of another student of Haeckel's, Wilhelm Roux. Roux believed that each part of an early embryo was already set to become a specific part of the animal.
Driesch studied sea urchin embryos. He found something surprising. When he separated the two cells of a sea urchin embryo after the first cell division, each cell grew into a complete, but smaller, sea urchin. This was not what he expected. He thought each cell would only grow into half of the animal. This was different from Roux's earlier work with frog embryos.
Driesch's experiments showed the same thing even at the four-cell stage. Each of the four separated cells could grow into an entire sea urchin larva, though they were smaller than usual. By 1885, Driesch even found that he could gently mix up the cells (called blastomeres) of a very early sea urchin embryo. The resulting larva still developed normally.
These discoveries showed that any single cell in a very early embryo could potentially form any part of the developing animal. This was a big challenge to older ideas that parts of an animal were already "preformed" in the embryo. It also challenged Roux's "mosaic theory," which said each cell had a fixed role. Driesch's findings caused some disagreement among Driesch, Roux, and Haeckel.
Driesch's work led to the terms "totipotent" and "pluripotent" cells. A "totipotent" cell can create every type of cell in an organism. A "pluripotent" cell can create almost every type of cell. Later, another scientist named Sven Hörstadius did more precise experiments. He showed that Driesch's idea of all early sea urchin cells being exactly the same was a bit too simple.
The Idea of Entelechy
Driesch believed his experimental results showed that life was not just a machine. He thought that the way embryos could still develop fully, even after being interfered with, meant there was something special guiding them. He called this guiding force "entelechy." He borrowed this word from Aristotle.
Driesch thought entelechy was like a "mind-like" or "psychoid" force. He described it as something that isn't physical or measurable in space. Instead, it's an inner quality or purpose that guides development.
In 1906 and 1908, Driesch gave important lectures called the Gifford Lectures at the University of Aberdeen. These lectures were titled The Science and Philosophy of the Organism. They were the first time he fully explained his ideas.
From 1909, Driesch decided to focus on philosophy. He taught natural philosophy at Heidelberg. Over the next ten years, he published a complete system of philosophy. This included his book Theory of Order (1912).
Later, he became a professor of philosophy in Cologne (1919) and Leipzig (1921). He also visited and taught in China (Nanjing and Beijing) in 1922-23. He received an honorary degree from National Southeastern University. He also taught in the United States (University of Wisconsin) and Argentina (Buenos Aires).
In 1933, the Nazi government removed him from his job in Leipzig. He was one of the first non-Jewish professors to be forced out. This happened because he believed in pacifism (being against war) and openly disliked the Nazis. After this, he became interested in parapsychology. He wrote about things like telepathy (mind reading), clairvoyance (seeing things not present), and telekinesis (moving objects with the mind).
Other scientists did not always agree with Driesch's idea of entelechy. Biologist J. W. Jenkinson said that Driesch was adding new ideas that were not really needed for science. Zoologist Herbert Spencer Jennings said that entelechy "does not help in our understanding of matters in the least." Some historians also felt his vitalist ideas were based more on religious beliefs than on scientific facts.
Interest in Parapsychology
Hans Driesch became very interested in studying unusual mental abilities, known as Parapsychology. In 1931, he wrote about how to do research in this field. In 1933, he published a book called Psychical Research: The Science of the Super-normal. He even served as the president of the Society for Psychical Research from 1926 to 1927.
Selected Books
Here are some of the books Hans Driesch wrote:
- The Science and Philosophy of the Organism (1908)
- The Problem of Individuality (1914)
- The History and Theory of Vitalism (1914)
- The Crisis in Psychology (1925)
- Psychical Research: The Science of the Super-Normal (1933)
See also
In Spanish: Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch para niños
- Ernst Haeckel
- Wilhelm Roux
- Hans Spemann
- Alexander Gurwitsch
