Wolfgang Schad | |
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| Born | 27 July 1935 |
| Died | 15 October 2022 |
| Occupation | Evolutionary biologist |
Wolfgang Schad (27 July 1935 – 15 October 2022) was a German evolutionary biologist, anthroposophist and goetheanist. [1]
Wolfgang Schad | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Born | 27 July 1935 |
| Died | 15 October 2022 |
| Occupation | Evolutionary biologist |
Wolfgang Schad (27 July 1935 – 15 October 2022) was a German evolutionary biologist, anthroposophist and goetheanist. [1]
Schad studied biology, chemistry, physics and education. In the early years of his professional career, he was a teacher at Waldorf schools. After many years as a Waldorf teacher at the Goetheschule in Pforzheim, Wolfgang Schad became a lecturer at the Seminar for Waldorf Education at the Freie Hochschule Stuttgart in 1975. In addition, he was a member of staff at the Educational Research Centre of the Bund der Freien Waldorfschulen in Stuttgart, which he temporarily directed.
In 1992 he founded the Institute for Evolutionary Biology and Morphology at Witten/Herdecke University, which he directed until 2005. [2] The foundation of the chair was supported by the patron Karl Ludwig Schweisfurth, after whom the institute was named.
His son Albrecht Schad also became a Waldorf teacher and, after his father's departure, also a lecturer at the Freie Hochschule Stuttgart in the training for teachers at Waldorf schools. [3]
Wolfgang Schad has since retired and Bernd Rosslenbroich has taken over as head of the institute. [4] [5]
His major two-volume work Threefoldness in Humans and Mammals: Toward a Biology of Form (Adonis Press, 2020) is an expanded second edition of his book Man and Mammals, first published in 1977. [6] In Threefoldness in Humans and Mammals, Schad applied Rudolf Steiner’s approach from his idea of the threefold structure of the human organism in the sense of a comparative morphology to mammals. [6] [7]
From 1982 to 1985 Schad published four anthologies of works by various authors under the title Goetheanist Natural Science in the (anthroposophical) Verlag Freies Geistesleben & Urachhaus. With this he established the term Goetheanism in the environment of anthroposophy. Numerous works by Schad appeared in anthroposophical journals, only occasionally did he write for others. As head of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, he became editor of the Wissenschaftlichen Schriftenreihe des Instituts für Evolutionsbiologie und Morphologie Universität Witten/Herdecke (Scientific Series of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Morphology University of Witten/Herdecke). [8] [9]
In his research in evolutionary biology, Schad came to the conclusion that evolutionary developments would not take place by coincidence alone, but also not by teleology, but that in many living beings there would live a piece of inner autonomy, which, if the epigenetic changes are inherited by their offspring, could lead them to new forms of development. [1] [10]
"The element of chance frees the course of evolution from the teleological determinism of any plan. In the meantime, quantum and chaos theory have also freed it from the causal determinism in its claim to absoluteness." (Wolfgang Schad, 2009) [11]
His central topics include the temporal shapes in the evolution of animals and humans and heterochrony. [12] [13] [14] In retirement, he authored several more books published by Urachhausverlag. [15]
Anthroposophy is a spiritual new religious movement which was founded in the early 20th century by the esotericist Rudolf Steiner that postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world, accessible to human experience. Followers of anthroposophy aim to engage in spiritual discovery through a mode of thought independent of sensory experience. Though proponents claim to present their ideas in a manner that is verifiable by rational discourse and say that they seek precision and clarity comparable to that obtained by scientists investigating the physical world, many of these ideas have been termed pseudoscientific by experts in epistemology and debunkers of pseudoscience.
Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel was a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist. He discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms and coined many terms in biology, including ecology, phylum, phylogeny, and Protista. Haeckel promoted and popularised Charles Darwin's work in Germany and developed the influential but no longer widely held recapitulation theory claiming that an individual organism's biological development, or ontogeny, parallels and summarises its species' evolutionary development, or phylogeny.
Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an evolutionary perspective. This subfield of anthropology systematically studies human beings from a biological perspective.
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Teleonomy is the quality of apparent purposefulness and of goal-directedness of structures and functions in living organisms brought about by natural processes like natural selection. The term derives from two Greek words, τέλος, from τελε-, and νόμος nomos ("law"). Teleonomy is sometimes contrasted with teleology, where the latter is understood as a purposeful goal-directedness brought about through human or divine intention. Teleonomy is thought to derive from evolutionary history, adaptation for reproductive success, and/or the operation of a program. Teleonomy is related to programmatic or computational aspects of purpose.
Adaptationism is a scientific perspective on evolution that focuses on accounting for the products of evolution as collections of adaptive traits, each a product of natural selection with some adaptive rationale or raison d'etre.
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Anthroposophic medicine is a form of alternative medicine based on pseudoscientific and occult notions. Devised in the 1920s by Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) in conjunction with Ita Wegman (1876–1943), anthroposophical medicine draws on Steiner's spiritual philosophy, which he called anthroposophy. Practitioners employ a variety of treatment techniques based upon anthroposophic precepts, including massage, exercise, counselling, and administration of substances.
A body plan, Bauplan, or ground plan is a set of morphological features common to many members of a phylum of animals. The vertebrates share one body plan, while invertebrates have many.
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Dankmar Bosse is a German geologist.
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