ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Agnes Arber (1879–1960): Between romantic morphology and modern biology

• In Event: Unorthodox Women, Unorthodox Ideas in Modern Biological Research

English Abstract

Agnes Arber (1879–1960) was a British plant morphologist, historian of botany, and philosopher of biology. Beyond her scientific achievements, she was also a single mother, an independent scholar who established her own home laboratory, and the first female botanist—and only the third woman overall—to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. Yet despite her remarkable accomplishments, Arber’s significant contributions to plant morphology and the philosophy of biology have been largely overlooked.
I argue that this neglect is partly due to the fact that Arber did not fully fit into the intellectual landscape of her time. Her ideas and methods diverged from the dominant mid-20th-century trends in biology, which increasingly emphasized laboratory-based, physico-chemical, and reductionist approaches. Rooted in Goethean and romantic traditions, Arber maintained a holistic, morphological, and often teleological perspective that stood in contrast to the emerging evolutionary synthesis and the prevailing “teleophobia” of her era. But at the same time, her work can be seen as strikingly prescient—anticipating contemporary antireductionist approaches in morphology and evolutionary biology.
In this talk, I will explore Arber’s fascinating life and work, drawing on her publications, personal notes, and extensive correspondence (including with biologist and mathematician D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson), and demonstrate how her unorthodox ideas can be and have already functioned as an inspiration for current research in plant morphology, evolutionary (developmental) biology, and philosophy of biology.

Author

• Vera Maximilia Straetmanns, Ruhr-University Bochum