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古植物学的故事（1）：中国古植物学的兴起—引言
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古植物学的故事（1）：中国古植物学的兴起—引言
古植物学；中国；历史; palaeobotany; China; hisotry
发表于 2009-8-26 11:32:12
本文曾刊发在History of Palaeobotany: Selected Essay书中：Sun Q.-G., 2005. The rise of Chinese palaeobotany emphasizing the global context.
In: Bowden, A.J., Burek, C.V. & Wilding, R. (eds) History of Palaeobotany: Selected Essay. London: Geological Society, Special Publications, 241:293-298
In: Bowden, A.J., Burek, C.V. & Wilding, R. (eds) History of Palaeobotany: Selected Essay. London: Geological Society, Special Publications, 241:293-298
现将文字稍作修改。
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The rise of Chinese palaeobotany emphasizing the global context
Qigao Sun
Abstract: The record of fossil plants in China can date back to the year 1086 during the Chinese Song Dynasty. The subject of palaeobotany was transplanted into China in the early 20th century. The rise of Chinese palaeobotany had direct connections with the world. Ting V.K. played a great role in the establishment of academic organisations and English journals for Chinese geological sciences, which also received support from foreign experts. Geological approach for palaeotanical studies was once popular in China because of practical use. Sze H.C. is usually called “the founder of Chinese palaeobotany”. Sze was a disciple of W. Gothan and made great contribution to the development of Chinese palaeobotany using geological approach. Hu Hsen-Hsu followed Asa Gray and thought that palaeobotany might be considered as a subject of plant sciences. Hu’s study on Metasequoia gives him a high reputation. The discovery of the living plants of Metasequoia is believed to be one of the most important discoveries in the 20th century. Hsü Jen was once majored in plant morphology and anatomy and obtained palaeobotanical training in Birbal Sahni’s lab in 1940’s. Hsü preferred to employ biological approach to work on fossil plants.
Introduction
It is as early as in 1086 that Shen Kuo (1029–1093), who is one of the great Chinese ancient scientists from the Song Dynasty, recorded the occurrence of fossil plants of so-called bamboo shoots in his voluminous works, Dream Pool Essays (Meng Xi Bi Tan). The fossil locality is situated at Yan-shui-guan, 35 km southeast of Yen–chuan, Shaanxi Province, where it is very dry and cool at present. The fossil plants which Shen Kuo considered to be bamboo shoots are actually assigned to the Neoclamites fossils. This fossil record is believed to be over 400 years earlier than that of Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) (Deng, 1976; Li & Wang, 1999; Li, 2000). According to the ecological requirements and environment of bamboo shoots, Shen Kuo inferred that the climate in this fossil locality was warm and humid during the geological past providing an example of the geological principle that the present might be a key to the past. Shen Kuo’s clever idea is about 700 years earlier than that of James Hutton (1726–1797) and Charles Lyell (1797–1875) (Sun & Yang, 2000).
However, we might speculate, why such a brilliant Chinese civilization did not produce a scientific tradition. In fact, Chinese science and technology began to lag behind the occidental world from about the time of the Industrial Revolution. In the second half of the 19th century, the Chinese government of the Qing Dynasty was forced to initiate a series of open policies to foreign countries. Since the early 1870s lots of Chinese students were sent abroad to learn modern science and technology and most of them were eager to return to China to modernize the developing country after they finished their studies abroad. Although the 20th century saw a series of dramatic changes in recent Chinese history, modern science and technology was transplanted into China bit by bit. The fact is that the development of modern science and technology in China during the 20th century had a very difficult passage distorted both by international trends and by all sorts of domestic factors. In the first half of the 20th century China was always at war. A series of unexpectedly political changes happened to China in the second half of the last century and Chinese scientists were isolated for quite a long time.
This paper serves as a case study for the global perspective on the history of modern plant sciences in China. Thus the aims of this paper are to focus on the early history of Chinese palaeobotany in the first half of the 20th century, to introduce those who played a significant part in the rise of Chinese palaeobotany, to emphasize some intrinsic academic connections with the academic world community and to provide some critical clues to understanding the current situation of palaeobotanical studies in China.
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https://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-225931-251508.html
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