- UCAS course code
- 3A48
- UCAS institution code
- M20
Master of Science (MSci)
MSci Medical Physiology
- Typical A-level offer: AAA-AAB including specific subjects
- Typical contextual A-level offer: AAB-ABC including specific subjects
- Refugee/care-experienced offer: ABB-ABC including specific subjects
- Typical International Baccalaureate offer: 36-35 points overall with 6, 6, 6 to 6, 6, 5 at HL, including specific requirements
Fees and funding
Fees
Tuition fees for home students commencing their studies in September 2025 will be £9,535 per annum (subject to Parliamentary approval). Tuition fees for international students will be £34,500 per annum. For general information please see the undergraduate finance pages.
Additional expenses
Policy on additional costs
All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).
Course unit details:
History of Biology
Unit code | BIOL10381 |
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Credit rating | 10 |
Unit level | Level 1 |
Teaching period(s) | Semester 1 |
Available as a free choice unit? | No |
Overview
This course aims to provide you with a broad perspective on how today’s life sciences have grown out of past investigations of living nature and the nature of life. By focusing on "objects": topics of inquiry and tools used to carry out these inquiries we will bring biology’s past to life, as something that helps us understand our present. Looking at these objects can tell us a great deal about how biology works, how it has changed, and even how it may develop in the 21st century. You will gain insight to the motivations that inspired scholars in the past to study living things and the circumstances in which such research was pursued.
Aims
- To gain a broad perspective on how today’s life sciences have grown out of past investigations of living nature and the nature of life.
- To bring biology’s past to life as something that helps us understand our present by focusing on ’objects’: topics of inquiry and tools used to carry out these inquiries.
- To understand how biology works, how it has changed, and how it may develop in the 21st century.
- To gain insight into the motivations that inspired scholars in the past to study living things and the circumstances in which such research was pursued.
Learning outcomes
We will address the following central questions:
- What did it mean to investigate living nature, to develop a science of life at various points in history?
- Who was interested in this?
- How was it done, in different historical, national, social or institutional settings?
- Why did biology develop in the way it did?
The course will look and feel different from history courses that students may remember from school. We are not particularly interested in the deeds of great men and women and their dates of birth or death. Lectures will be organised around "objects": topics of inquiry, key organisms or research tools.
Syllabus
Employability skills
- Group/team working
- The weekly seminars include work in small groups.
- Innovation/creativity
- The seminars include work on tasks that invite students to approach issues creatively. The essay also requires creativity.
- Oral communication
- Teaching includes a weekly seminar where students are invited to discuss topics addressed in the lectures.
- Research
- The essay assignment requires independent research.
- Written communication
- Students prepare an essay outline l and write a 1000-word essay.
Assessment methods
Method | Weight |
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Other | 20% |
Written assignment (inc essay) | 80% |
Feedback methods
Recommended reading
- Allen, Garland E., Life Science in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 1975).
- Bowler, Peter J. and Iwan Rhys Morus, Making Modern Science: A Historical Survey (University of Chicago Press, 2005).
- Cobb, Matthew, The Egg & Sperm Race: The Seventeenth-Century Scientists who unlocked the Secrets of Sex and Growth (The Free Press, 2006).
- Coleman, William, Biology in the Nineteenth Century: Problems of Form, Function and Transformation (Wiley 1971).
- Mayr, Ernst, This is Biology: The Science of the Living World (Belknap Press, 1997).
Study hours
Scheduled activity hours | |
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Lectures | 20 |
Tutorials | 11 |
Independent study hours | |
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Independent study | 69 |
Teaching staff
Staff member | Role |
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Carsten Timmermann | Unit coordinator |