• DOI:10.2307/1217734
• Corpus ID: 87030547

THE ORIGIN OF THE MALE AND FEMALE SYMBOLS OF BIOLOGY

@article{Stearn1962THEOO,
  title={THE ORIGIN OF THE MALE AND FEMALE SYMBOLS OF BIOLOGY},
  author={William Thomas Stearn},
  journal={Taxon},
  year={1962},
  volume={11},
  pages={109-113}
}

• W. Stearn
• Published 1 May 1962
• Physics
• Taxon

The symbols 6 and ?, so widely used in modern biology to distinguish male and female organs or individuals, have a long complex history which touches upon mythology, astrology, alchemy, palaeography, pharmacy, chemistry, heraldry and, as regards their biological application, the schooling and psychology of the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707-78). They illustrate how an apparently simple historical question in science, as that raised by G. Rattray Taylor in the New Scientist, 11 (no. 245): 236 (27 July 1961) on the way in which 'the conventional signs for male and female-known as the Shield of Mars and the Mirror of Venus-first came to be used for this purpose', may lead into many unrelated branches of scholarship. From his study of the exact sciences in antiquity Neugebauer (1951) came to consider astronomy as 'the most important force in the development of science since its origin sometime around 500 BC to the days of Laplace, Lagrange and Gauss'. It began when men noted that there were certain regular correspondences between the movements of heavenly bodies and happenings here on Earth, notably between the Sun, the growth of plants and the breeding of animals, and between the Moon and the tides. Such observations gave rise to the belief that this relation was a far-reaching one that events, for example, in the life of a single individual or of a group were somehow controlled by the planets. From this it followed that knowledge of the course of heavenly bodies would enable the initiated to predict earthly events. Astrology is the formal and systematic expression of this belief. In ancient times it reached its highest development at the hands of the Babylonians. As stated by Toulmin and Goodfield (1961), 'they kept continuous dated records of celestial events from at least 747 BC, and their best mathematical techniques were not excelled until quite recently'. With reference to the origin of our symbols 6 and Y it is significant that in these records, preserved on hundreds of cuneiforminscribed bricks, the names of gods are also the names of heavenly bodies. Alexander the Great's conquest of the Babylonians in 331 BC made their knowledge directly available to the Ancient Greeks.