Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology, Vol. 24 (2019)
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he name DGGTB (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte und Theorie Deutsche Gesellschaft für der Biologie; German Society for the History and Philosophy of Biology) reflT ects recent history as well as German tradition. The Society is a relatively Geschichte und Theorie der Biologie late addition to a series of German societies of science and medicine that began with the “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften”, founded in 1910 by Leipzig University’s Karl Annals of the History Sudhoff (1853-1938), who wrote: “We want to establish a ‘German’ society in order to gather German-speaking historians together in our special and Philosophy of Biology disciplines so that they form the core of an international society…”. Yet Sudhoff, at this time of burgeoning academic internationalism, was “quite Volume 24 (2019) willing” to accommodate the wishes of a number of founding members and “drop the word German in the title of the Society and have it merge formerly Jahrbuch für with an international society”. The founding and naming of the Society at Geschichte und Theorie der Biologie that time derived from a specifi c set of historical circumstances, and the same was true some 80 years later when in 1991, in the wake of German reunifi cation, the “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte und Theorie der Biologie” was founded. From the start, the Society has been committed to bringing studies in the history and philosophy of biology to a wide audience, using for this purpose its Jahrbuch für Geschichte und Theorie der Biologie. Parallel to the Jahrbuch, the Verhandlungen zur Geschichte und Theorie der Biologie has become the by now traditional medium for the publication of papers delivered at the Society’s annual meetings. In Annals of the History and Philosophy Biology, Vol. 24 (2019) 2005 the Jahrbuch was renamed Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology, refl ecting the Society’s internationalist aspirations in addressing comparative biology as a subject of historical and philosophical studies. DGGTB ISSN: 1863-0197 eISSN: 2512-5923 Universitätsverlag Göttingen Universitätsverlag Göttingen Manuscripts should be submitted to the managing editor. Submissions will be peer reviewed. Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology, Volume 24 (2019) The preferred language is English. Articles in German should be accompanied by a short (max. 1000 words) summary in English. Managing Editor Contents Dr. Christian Reiß Professur für Wissenschaftsgeschichte Universität Regensburg Jürgen Bereiter-Hahn 93040 Regensburg Biological basics for the development of norms ................................................................. 1 Germany Email: [email protected] Michal V. Šimůnek ‘Project Prague’. Reich Institute for the Cultivation of Forest Plants Editors and Research of Forest Species (Reichsinstitut für Forstpflanzenzüchtung und Uwe Hoßfeld, Jena, Germany Baumrassenforschung) in Houštka (Haustka) by Stará Boleslav (Altbunzlau) Lennart Olsson, Jena, Germany in Bohemia, 1941–1945 ..........................................................................................................31 Christian Reiß, Regensburg, Germany Alexander A. Lvov Editorial Board Gustav Teichmüller’s Epistemological Anti-Darwinism ................................................... 59 Ingo Brigandt, Edmonton, Canada Ariane Dröscher, Bologna, Italy Bernhard Heeb & Barbara Teßmann Eve-Marie Engels, Tübingen, Germany Zur Geschichte der anthropologischen Rudolf-Virchow-Sammlung Gabriel W. Finkelstein, Denver, USA (RV-Sammlung) ........................................................................................................................ 75 Nick Hopwood, Cambridge, UK Thomas Junker, Frankfurt / Main, Germany Martin S. Fischer, Uwe Hoßfeld, Johannes Krause & Stefan Richter Ulrich Kutschera, Kassel, Germany The Jena Declaration. Jena, Haeckel and the Question of Human Races, or, Georgy S. Levit, Jena, Germany Racism Creates Races ..............................................................................................................91 Amos Morris-Reich, Haifa, Israel Staffan Müller-Wille, Exeter, UK Stefan Lux Kärin Nickelsen, Munich, Germany Haeckels Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte und die Rezeption der Kontraselektion Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Berlin, Germany im 19. Jahrhundert .................................................................................................................125 Robert Richards, Chicago, USA Marsha L. Richmond, Detroit, USA Georgy S. Levit & Judith Schäfer Nicolaas A. Rupke, Lexington, USA Die „Grauzone“ in der Medizinethik: Anmerkungen zu Hans-Konrad Schmutz, Zürich / Winterthur, Switzerland ernährungswissenschaftlichen und medizinischen Versuchen an Menschen ...............183 Michal V. Šimůnek, Prague, Czech Republic Georg Töpfer, Berlin, Germany David M. Williams, London, UK Volker Wissemann, Gießen, Germany Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte und Theorie der Biologie (Ed.) Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology Vol. 24 (2019) This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology; Volume 24 (2019) Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2021 Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte und Theorie der Biologie (Ed.) Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology Vol. 24 (2019) Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2021 Bibliographic information The German National Library lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. Managing Editor of the Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology Dr. Christian Reiß Professur für Wissenschaftsgeschichte Universität Regensburg 93040 Regensburg Germany Email: [email protected] Cover Picture: Friedrich Besemann: Leinekanal mit akademischem Museum und Graetzelhaus. Aquarellierte Federzeichung 1860. Graphische Sammlung des Städtischen Museums Göttingen Cover Design: Kilian Klapp, Maren Büttner Typesetting and layout: Alice von Berg © 2021 Universitätsverlag Göttingen https://univerlag.uni-goettingen.de DOI: https://doi.org/10.17875/gup2021-1583 ISSN: 1863-0197 eISSN: 2512-5923 Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology, Volume 24 (2019) Contents Jürgen Bereiter-Hahn Biological basics for the development of norms ................................................ 1 Michal V. Šimůnek ‘Project Prague’. Reich Institute for the Cultivation of Forest Plants and Research of Forest Species (Reichsinstitut für Forstpflanzenzüchtung und Baumrassenforschung) in Houštka (Haustka) by Stará Boleslav (Altbunzlau) in Bohemia, 1941–1945 ........................................................................................ 31 Alexander A. Lvov Gustav Teichmüller’s Epistemological Anti-Darwinism ................................. 59 Bernhard Heeb & Barbara Teßmann Zur Geschichte der anthropologischen Rudolf-Virchow-Sammlung (RV-Sammlung) ..................................................................................................... 75 Martin S. Fischer, Uwe Hoßfeld, Johannes Krause & Stefan Richter The Jena Declaration. Jena, Haeckel and the Question of Human Races, or, Racism Creates Races ...................................................... 91 Stefan Lux Haeckels Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte und die Rezeption der Kontraselektion im 19. Jahrhundert ................................................................. 125 Georgy S. Levit & Judith Schäfer Die „Grauzone“ in der Medizinethik: Anmerkungen zu ernährungswissenschaftlichen und medizinischen Versuchen an Menschen ......................................................................................................... 183 Biological basics for the development of norms Jürgen Bereiter-Hahn 1 Introduction A combination of biology and ethics is always in danger of naturalistic fallacy. This applies in particular to the derivation of norms. Norms are regulations of “ought”, norms stipulate: this is how people should behave in a certain situation, this is to let them do it, this is to leave. These rules are simultaneously definitions of good and evil. Contrary to the view repeatedly held by evolutionary biologists that what has gone the way of evolution is good per se – as for example Ernst Haeckel (1899) argued – biology has nothing to do with good and evil. This does not mean that processes of evolution cannot be used to compare human plans and actions as Konrad Lorenz (1963) tried to understand aggressive behaviour. However, the judgments derived from it are not ethical or moral statements. A natural science reveals what is, how it has originated and explains the special being, a validation can only refer to the survival success of the acting individual. David Hume already made it clear that it is not possible to infer from being to ought (and vice versa), a statement which, however, has to be questioned in its absoluteness (Putnam, 2002). Ethics, as a teaching of the right life, is inevitably a human invention. It refers to the relationship between people and their environment. But humans are also living beings that arose in the course of a long evolution. Accordingly, their abilities, including their cultural achievements, must also be historically compre- hensible via evolution. This leads to the question of how far back in evolution we can find possible roots from which people have developed their specific norms and values. This does not concern the content of norms and values, but only their 2 Jürgen