ROWAN UNIVERSITY

Cell Theory
A Historical and Philosophical View
Tyler Gale 12/13/2011

The study of life is known as the field of biology, this is also known as the study of all living creatures. From as large as the Sperm Whale all the way down to the Mycoplasma genitalium. (Smallest living creature) Biology is no stranger to philosophical themes, there are many theories that are in the field of biology for example there is the theory of evolution, the theory of inheritance, the theory of modern biochemistry. The theory that will be examined in this essay is that of the cellular theory of life. This is the theory that is the basis of all normal science in the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries. Cell theory is also one of the fields that are currently helping evolutionists to examine the processes of population genetics and population evolution on a smaller scale which allows for much control. What is cell theory? Cell theory has two different interpretations one is the classical which is the view of the scientists that discovered all of the tenets in the theory and the second is that of the more modern and more contemporary view. The modern view has been added to and has been twisted to cover the broader subjects of biology. The first tenet of the cell theory of the modern view is that all living things are made of one or more cells, this is pretty self explanatory. Second is that all cells arise from pre-existing cells by division, also self explanatory. The third is that the cell is the fundamental unit of structure and function in all living organisms; this is the statement that all animals and bacteria can be broken down into the very cells that make the animal what they are. This is in concern with the metabolism and or the chemical reactions that are needed to keep the organism alive, also the very basic structure is a mosaic of cells. The fourth is that the activity of the organism is completely dependent on the activities of the cells in the organisms which seg ways into the fifth tenet in that all of the energy going into an organism must go into the cells to be processed and made useful. The final tenet of the cell theory is that all of the information needed for reproduction is found in strands of chemicals called DNA.
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Now to really understand the new theory we must go back and revisit the old theory to which allowed and facilitated the discovery of the modern theory. In the classical model we see only three tenets which were presented in the order in which they were accepted as theory. The first is the cell is the unit of structure, physiology, and organization in living things. This is that same principal that was stated in the modern view and was found and supported by Theodor Schwann, and Matthias Schleiden. The second tenet which was also supported by Schwann and Schleiden was that the cell retains a dual existence as a distinct entity and a building block in the construction of the organism. The third tenet was surrounded by questionable methods of presenting in that Rudolph Virchow stated that all cells come from pre-existing cells and this was allegedly plagiarized from the work of Robert Remak. Now before we discuss the philosophical ramifications and turmoil that the cell theory had to go thru before becoming one of the most important theories in the history of science; we must figure out in what context and atmospheres each of the three classical tenets were conjured up. The majority of the discoveries in the cellular field were mostly hand in hand with the development of the field of microscopy. In 1663 an English scientist, Robert Hooke, discovered cells in a piece of cork, which he examined under his primitive microscope. Actually, Hooke only observed cell walls because cork cells are dead and without cytoplasmic contents. Hooke drew the cells he saw and also coined the word cell. Hooke published his findings in his famous work, Micrographia: Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses. Single lens, monocular microscopes and was the first person to observe bacteria and protozoa. Leeuwenhoek is known to have made over 500 "microscopes," of which fewer than ten have survived to the present day. In basic design, probably due to all of Leeuwenhoek's instruments were simply powerful magnifying glasses, not compound microscopes of the type used today.
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Leeuwenhoek's skill at grinding lenses, together with his naturally acute eyesight and great care in adjusting the lighting where he worked, enabled him to build microscopes that magnified over 200 times. In 1673, Leeuwenhoek began writing letters to the newly formed Royal Society of London, describing what he had seen with his lenses. His first letter contained some observations on the bee stings. His observations were printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. He discovered blood cells, and was the first to see living sperm cells of animals. He discovered microscopic animals such as nematodes (round worms) and rotifers. The list of his discoveries is long. Leeuwenhoek soon became famous as his letters were published and translated. After his death on August 30, 1723, a member of the Royal Society wrote... "Antony van Leeuwenhoek considered that what is true in natural philosophy can be most fruitfully investigated by the experimental method, supported by the evidence of the senses; for which reason, by diligence and tireless labor he made with his own hand certain most excellent lenses, with the aid of which he discovered many secrets of Nature, now famous throughout the whole philosophical World". In this tribute we can see that normal science at work in the best of ways, Leeuwenhoek himself was a stout believer of God and the churchs perception at the time. This led him to believe that the discoveries that were made where merely an exemplification of the great wonder of god. This was why he was a great normal scientist he worked under the paradigm of the church and this allowed him to use several assumptions when interpreting his results. Some examples would be that when seeing his observations on the head of the bee, he states that the head is seemingly made by an outside creator for the design is so complex for the functions that

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are being performed. This is contradictory of his observation of the eye in the bee; he stated that the eye works not by art of knowledge, but only after the pattern of the light received in the eye. Now the next philosopher was that of Lorenz Oken who was a German natur-philosopher and microscope enthusiast. In about 1805 he stated that, all living organisms originate from and consist of cells this was and is still to this day the first known statement of a cell theory. This was swiftly followed by the discovery of the nucleus by Robert Brown. He was a Naturalist that visited the colonies of Australia and there saw many varieties of plants and in doing this saw that there was a centralized spot in all of the plants that he observed. Seeing this he stated to toy with the idea of there being a centralized portion of the cell that is identical in all cells to his level of observation. Now that we have seen the observations of the infant cell theory we can now see what the scientists Matthias Jakob Schleiden or as he was known MJ, and Theodore Schwann. These observations of Hooke, Leeuwenhoek, Oken, and Brown painted the picture of the cell that when read together are unmistakably connected but at the time they were so far apart from each other that the need for consolidation was apparent. To begin we will discuss the work of M.J. Schleiden, around 1838 with the publishing of his paper, Beitrage zur Phytogenesis, which discussed the plant cell in detail and more specifically the importance of the nucleus in the cells as the original structure of the cell before the rest of the adult cell is added to the cell. This was also helped by the work of his friend Schwann, who worked in the field of animal histology. Schwann was puzzled over the inability of himself to describe the resemblance of embryonic cord material, from which the spinal column develops, to vegetable cells. He also saw that some of the animal tissues seemed to coincide with MJs theory of the cells in which a nucleus is present. Schwann seeing this comes to reason that the cells that are seen in plants are also seen
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in the animals this was the beginning of the cell theory as we know it. This was so profound that Schwann produced a paper within a year of the publishing of MJs paper. For the sake of thoroughness the final peg of the classical cell theory was formulated by Rudolf Virchow in 1858, this was that the cells come from other existing cells and not from the common response of the time which stated that they came from a free formation of the chemicals that make up the cell. The way of seeing life prior to the formulation of the cell theory was the beliefs of the Vitalism train of thought which was laid out by the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle. This philosophical view of life and the world around us was useful in the time of the Greeks and up to the 17th century. This was you could say a paradigm be it not a scientific one, but a set of beliefs which allowed normal science to happen under. This paradigm was subject to any of the scrutiny that we see in use on more current paradigms; with this we can see the tenet of the theory called Vitalism that pertains to this topic. Which is stated as the functions of a living organism are due to a vital principle distinct from biochemical reactions, or in other words a soul is what defines alive. Those in the scientific community during the time of Schwann and Schleiden had found several anomalies that could not be fit into the Vitalists theory of there being a vital principal that helps to pull together the materials to make cells in the perceived free formation that was believed prior to Virchow. In addition the statement that all organisms are made of cells and their products is contradictory to the Vitalists thought of a soul being the driving force behind the organisms on earth. These anomalies made several waves in the philosophical views of the field of study which were practicing normal science. We can say that they were practicing normal science in that the methods and observations were formatted in the following ways.
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Normal science is using a paradigm such as the Vitalism theory and then using several processes pushes the limits of the assumptions in said paradigm. The definition of a paradigm is basic and incontrovertible assumptions about the nature of the discipline; also the paradigm is a way to perform experiments that have a predicted outcome using the stated assumptions. This predicting is also part of the puzzle solving involved in normal science, you are given different conditions and assumptions and have to predict the outcome and then explain the way that the process happens. For example when Schleiden observed and stated that all plant cells have a nucleus this allowed Schwann to look at animal cells and further the assumption of Schleiden to include all animal cells and all cells in general by observing several different kinds of cells that are in existence. Normal science is also the mechanism in which the paradigm is destroyed and a new one is put in its place. The methods of normal science have to rely on the assumptions of the paradigm and if the paradigm is not correct in any way than the experiments and the methods of normal science will bring up several problems and these are called anomalies. For example when Virchow saw that the cells are forming from one another not out of thin air he added to the current paradigm and stated that all cells come from other cells. When these anomalies dont fit back in there is a time of crisis which in the cell theory is not very evident. This is due to the face that the field of classical cell theory was based mostly off of observing the cells and not really any experiments. But for examples sake the crisis period in the cell theory is during the time of the discovery of the cell nucleus by Robert brown this was when we realized that the cell didnt have a soul that governed the cell but a central control center. This was in straight contradiction of the Vitalism theory.

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This formulating of a cell theory by Schleiden and Schwann was out of the need for a centralized theory to fit in the new observations. Out of this came the classical interpretation of the cell theory, this is now the paradigm of acceptance. For a paradigm to be fully accepted the public must choose it over the competitor, in the case of the cell theory we see the public as the scientific community and not the general public in that the general public is under the influence of the church and are blind to the science that is taking place. But in the scientific community the belief is that the cell theory is accepted and is renowned as the theory of truth for the time. Was the cell theory a significant episode in the history of science and the philosophy of science? Yes, there are several instances for which the use of cell theory allowed for discoveries in the field of biology. The first is that without the cell theory the concept of genetics would be nonexistent, this is due to the fact that the cell theory states that all cells come from other cells and this assumption allowed Gregory Mendel the ability to assume that the information in the parent is directly responsible for the information in the child. Another example of the significance of the cell theory is the theory of evolution; this is based on the simplification of species down to the cellular level. Here we can see that the cells are very similar and also follow the tree of phylogeny that the individual species had followed over time. In addition the cell theory also led the way for scientists to develop the infant field of biochemistry where the actual chemicals that are in the cell are cataloged and stated in the order in which they are used. This is not possible without the cell theories assumptions of all metabolisms happens inside of the cell and is completely separate from the other cells around them. The field of developmental biology has benefited due to the statement of the cell coming from other cells; which allows the scientists to see exactly which cells are developing into which tissue types and which region of the body is developed when plus this can give us insight into developmental problems such as autism and
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other developmental disorders. My final appeal to the cell theory is most likely the greatest this is due to the vast usefulness of the practice of stem cells. The field of stem cells is a rapid, useful and innovative field which could potentially hold the cure for several of the disorders that have ravaged human kind throughout time. All of this is made possible by the cell theory and the discovery of cell differentiation; I have said it once before but the statement of cells coming from other cells is the driving force. When a cell is a stem cell it has no identity and the ability to give it identity is the place where history is being made and the cell theory also helps out with the statement of the cell has all of its own processes inside of the walls of the cell. This allows us to turn one stem cell into a nerve cell and another into a muscle cell. In conclusion, we can see that the cell theory has shaped modern biology into what it is today, along with providing many opportunities to be taken advantage of. The cell theory has allowed the field of biology to reach the level of normal science that once was thought to only include the Newtonian Physics, which now can include the field of biology. In addition to offering opportunity the cell theory has offered an insight into the philosophy of biology as a whole and offered many views on the most important facet of human and life on earth which is life itself and how it interacts with the world around it what more is really needed in the realm of knowledge for life bound creatures.

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Works Consulted
Nicholson, Daniel J. "Biological Atomism and Cell Theory." Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 41.3 (2010): 202-11. Print. Mller-Wille, Staffan. "Cell Theory, Specificity, and Reproduction, 18371870." Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 41.3 (2010): 225-31. Print. Mazzarello, Paolo. "A Unifying Concept: the History of Cell Theory." NATURE CELL BIOLOGY 1 (1999): 13-15. Print. Leeuwenhoek, Anton V., and Regnerus D. Graaf. "A Specimen of Some Observations Made by a Microscope, Contrived by M. Leeuwenhoek in Holland, Lately Communicated by Dr. Regnerus De Graaf." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 8 (1673): 6037038. Print.

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