The Many Books of Nature: Renaissance Naturalists and Information Overload

Journal of the History of Ideas 64 (1):29-40 (2003)
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Abstract

Early Renaissance naturalists worked to identify the plans described in ancient sources. But during the middle decades of the sixteenth century, naturalists instead began to describe and name plans unknown to the ancients. They also divided nature much more finely, distinguishing species that their predecessors had lumped together. As a result, they created an information overload. Dictionaries of synonyms and local flora were invented in the early seventeenth century as partial solutions to this problem of information overload.

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Citations of this work

Natural history and information overload: The case of Linnaeus.Staffan Müller-Wille & Isabelle Charmantier - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 43 (1):4-15.
Data-driven sciences: From wonder cabinets to electronic databases.Bruno J. Strasser - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 43 (1):85-87.

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