Born in Jindřichův Hradec (South Bohemia) on August 6, 1958
- 1973-77 - Secondary School, leaving with honours
- From 1977 - Charles University, Prague – Masters program majoring in zoology with specialisation in entomology
- Graduated 1982
- 1983-90 - Lived in exile in Austria;Research worker at Museum of Natural History, Vienna, Austrian Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and Zoological Institute of Vienna University; Zoological papers on biology and faunistics of butterflies and moths (1986, 1987, 1989) and on the evolution and function of their wing patterns (1989, 1991, 1993), at the same time first essays and poems, cooperation with Czech exile organisations in Austria and Germany
- 1990 - Returned to Charles University, Prague, assistant professor (1990-94), associated professor (1994-2001), since 2001 professor of Philosophy and History of Science
- 1993 - 6 month research project at the University of Leiden, Netherlands
- 1996-2002 - Head of the Dept.of Philosophy and History of Science
- Topics of concern: aesthetics of nature acording to Adolf Portmann (1994) history of biology (1987, 1997), especially history of research of mimicry and related phenomena (1998, 2003) and the relation of nature and culture (2009)
- Since 1995 - five books of essays and columns, previously published in Czech journals, a book of poems and three novels (Profil on PCL, author, 2004, 2007)
- 2006 awarded the Tom Stoppard Award for Belles–Lettres
- From 1980 - numerous study trips : Azerbaijan (1981), Peru (1985), Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras (1990), Iran (1996, 97, 98), China (2000, 2004), Jawa and Borneo (2002), India (2003), Tibet (2004), South Africa (2005), Japan (2006), Malaysia (2007), Taiwan and Vietnam (2008)