Darwin-L Message Log 8:24 (April 1994)

Academic Discussion on the History and Theory of the Historical Sciences

This is one message from the Archives of Darwin-L (1993–1997), a professional discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences.

Note: Additional publications on evolution and the historical sciences by the Darwin-L list owner are available on SSRN.

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<8:24>From DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu  Sun Apr 10 12:20:05 1994

Date: Sun, 10 Apr 1994 14:19:56 -0500 (EST)
From: DARWIN@iris.uncg.edu
Subject: "Natural history" vs. "botany": a follow-up
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Organization: University of NC at Greensboro

A few weeks ago we had a discussion of the different connotations of "natural
history" and "botany", with the suggestion that for some reason "botany" was
sometimes excluded from the broader category "natural history".  I just came
across another example of this: the Library of Congress Subject Headings, used
by many libraries to assign call numbers and subject classes to their books,
has a heading "Paleontology" which includes general works on fossils _and also
works on animal fossils_, and then a separate heading "Paleobotany" for works
on plant fossils; there is no corresponding heading "Paleozoology" because
animal fossils are taken to be covered by "Paleontology".  (I also noted that
they spell "paleontology" with an 'e' and spell "archaeology" with an 'ae', but
that's another story.)

Bob O'Hara, Darwin-L list owner

Robert J. O'Hara (darwin@iris.uncg.edu)
Center for Critical Inquiry and Department of Biology
100 Foust Building, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, North Carolina 27412 U.S.A.

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