| Popis: |
This chapter intends to elucidate the academic heritage and intellectual background of the father of biophysics in China. My central argument is that if we want to learn about biophysics in China, we have to learn more about Bei Shizhang; if we want to understand Bei, we have to pay a visit to his intellectual world. But this world is complex and many-faceted, for Bei is not just an institution builder and a visionary leader, he is also a charismatic leader and a controversial scientist. This chapter explores these various facets of Bei Shizhang by chronicling his early life in China, the correlation between the formation of his scientific worldview and the naturphilosophie of his neo-Lamarckian German teacher, Wilhelm Harms. I also consider Bei’s contested scientific pursuit––the theory of cell reformation which had some parallels with O.B. Lepeshinskaya’s now discredited studies of “the origins of life” in the Soviet Union––within the larger sets of issues involving Soviet-styled biology, the perception of Marxist philosophy, and political patronage of cytology in twentieth-century Communist states. |
