%0 Journal Article
%T History of Ecological Sciences, Part 63: Biosphere Ecology
%J The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America - Wiley Online Library
%D 2019
%R https://doi.org/10.1002/bes2.1568
%X This is a new, ecological age, and its universal religion will probably become like [Gerd Heinrich's], that of nature on a global scale. Our moral choices will be informed by that vision of the whole, which is greater than all of us humans combined. Individually, we are like cells of a giant organism, the earth's biosphere. —Bernd Heinrich (2007)  Biogeochemistry, Gaia, and Earth system science are versions of biosphere ecology. Global warming might be considered a biosphere pathology. Part 63 of this series begins with very early studies into what we would now call biosphere ecology. Photosynthesis is a very important component of this history. During the 400s C.E., Rufinus of Aquileia translated from Greek into Latin pseudo‐Clement's Recognitions, a conversation between a skeptical father and his Christian sons. One question raised was “Does not the rebirth of seed from earth and water and its growth into plants for the use of man sufficiently demonstrate the workings of the providence of God?” (translated in Howe 1965:409). One son responded: “When they are sown, the earth, by the divine will, pours out upon these seeds the water it has received…” (in Howe 1965:410; Egerton 2014a,b:208). The son then proposed seeds be planted in a known weight of dirt, with nothing added but water. After the plants have grown, they can be weighed and the dirt again weighed. The dirt will be seen to have lost no weight, and so the plants’ substance clearly came only from water. German scholar‐diplomat Nikolaus (or Nicholas) von Cusa (ca.1401–64) in 1450 wrote Idiota de staticis experimentis, which included an account of pseudo‐Clement's experiment (Hoff 1964, Howe 1965, Hofmann 1971). To the previous account, Nikolaus added “by the operation of the Sunne” (translation in Hoff 1964:108). He also suggested weighing the seeds or seedlings before the experiment and afterward to burn the plants to determine their dry weight. These first two accounts are presented as hypothetical, though at least the first account would have to have had a real experiment as its basis in order to be confident of the results. Leonard K. Nash compiled a case history of experimental science, Plants and the Atmosphere (1957), in which Belgian physician Johann Baptista van Helmont (1577–1644), who coined the word “gas” (Partington 1962:index, Pagel 1972, Hill 2013:xv–xvi) and English aristocrat Robert Boyle (1627–91), active member of the Royal Society of London (Partington 1962:index, Hall 1967, 1970, Hunter 2015), conducted actual experiments (van Helmont using a willow tree), which seemed to
%U https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bes2.1568