The Naturalization of Life

This lecture explores the transition of living organisms from religious and spiritual interpretations to scientific explanations, focusing on essentialism, fixism, anthropocentrism, and dualism. It delves into the strategies developed to naturalize life, such as identifying cells, describing embryo development, and de-hierarchizing species relationships. The emergence of the cell concept, the debate between globulists and fibrillists, and the impact of microscopes on scientific hypotheses are discussed. The lecture also covers the historical perspectives on spontaneous generation, the conflicts between preformationists and epigeneticists, and the shift towards scientific explanations. It concludes with an analysis of Darwin's revolutionary ideas, including his rejection of spiritual and essentialist views, his proposal of a naturalistic and materialistic perspective, and the challenges his theory faced from creationist and spiritualist interpretations.