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- *Aristotle; I may be wrong, but I've always been taught that Aristotle was a natural scientist and philosopher who happened to investigate plants and animals. --maveric149
Yes, that's a fair argument. However, that far back, the terms aren't all that meaningful in some cases. Was Euclid a computer scientist? --Robert Merkel
I would argue for including Aristotle here, because his thoughts on living things (even if mostly wrong) were quite influential for many centuries. If you read one of the excellent books by Ernst Mayr about evolutionary theory, you will often see him go back all the way to Aristotle to explain a concept.
Arguably, somebody who "investigates plants and animals" is a biologist, even before the term existed. That doesn't mean that he is only a biologist, of course. Aristotle's philosophy was much more infuential. AxelBoldt
Obviously, I need to do a bit more reseach on this to see what Aristotle wrote on the subject. --maveric149
I think that the term biologist implies someone who applies scientific methods to investigate living things, which is a far cry from Aristotle. Great philosopher, sure, but not a scientist. Mwenechanga (talk)
Aristotle applied empirical thinking, however, which was the equivalent to what it has evolved today as the 'scientific methods' you mention. Science evolved from and is a subset of philosophy in this regard, I think it's fair to regard him as a 'natural scientist' in this regard considering the historical context. The Tumbleman (talk) 23:54, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
