Find by discipline

The idea of specialisms is a relatively new concept. Indeed it is important to note that until our recent history (post Scientific Revolution), the idea of being a specialist, or having a specialism, was unheard of. Most individuals in science prior to the 1600s usually referred to themselves, or were referred to, generally as natural philosophers, which often covered interest in many different branches of our modern sciences. In fact, the distinction between science and art was minuscule at best. With the advent of the Scientific Revolution (beginning in the late 1500s  where scientists reformed and revised ideas dating back to Aristotle), scientists began to move away from a generalist of scientific thought to specialism of our modern natural and physical sciences.  

We can track the progression of the development of specialisms by looking at the timeline within a discipline. As an example, within biology we have progressed from ‘biologists’ or ‘naturalists’ or ‘botanists’ to ‘cell biologists’, ‘developmental biologists’, and ‘plant pathologists’.

This should not come as a surprise; as our collective knowledge base on a subject increases, the further we go down a rabbit hole, the less generalised our knowledge becomes.

Here, we have categorised our scientists into ten disciplines, based on their significant works or areas of research. Some can be found in more than one category due to crossover of work.