The traditional narrative of the history of biology as a field focusses on the West. As such, other regions of the world are underdiscussed- which is important when discussing how to decolonise our curriculum and therefore what needs to be included and reflected. In this episode, we're going to step back in time to the Islamic Golden Age and discuss evolutionary theory- centuries before Charles Darwin was even born.

Sources for this episode:

Fuentes, A. (2021), "The Descent of Man", 150 years on. Science 372(6544): 769.
Haensch, S., Bianucci, R., Signoli, M., Rajerison, M., Schultz, M., Kacki, S., Vermunt, M., Weston, D. A., Hurst, D., Achtman, M., Carniel, E. and Bramanti, B. (2010), Distinct Clones of Yersinia pestis Caused the Black Death. PLOS Pathogens 6(10): e1001134.
Issawi, C., Encyclopaedia Britannica (2022), Ibn Khaldūn (online) [Accessed 19/07/2022].
Malik, A. H., Ziermann, J. M. and Diogo, R. (2018), An untold story in biology: the historical continuity of evolutionary ideas of Muslim scholars from the 8th century to Darwin’s time. Journal of Biological Education 52(1): 3-17.
Singer, C. (1950), A history of biology: a general introduction to the study of living things, 2nd edition, London: Lewis.
Author unknown, Keele University (2018), Keele Manifesto for decolonising the curriculum (online) [Accessed 16/06/2022].
Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Islamic Golden Age (online) [Accessed c.20/03/2022 and 23/06/2022].
Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Muqaddimah (online) [Accessed 19/07/2022].

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