biology

Biologist

2022

We explain what biology is and what its history is. In addition, the importance, auxiliary sciences and branches of biology.

biology comes from the Greek: bios, "life and lodge, "Science, knowing".

What is biology?

Biology (whose name comes from the Greek: bios, "life and lodge, "Science, knowing") is one of the natural Sciences, and its object of study includes the different forms and dynamics of life: the origin, the evolution, the adaptation and the processes of the living creatures: the nutrition, the metabolism, growth, response to stimuli, reproduction, and its various possible mechanisms of existence.

Biology proposes the empirical study and narrow to the scientific method of the fundamentals of life, wanting to find the rules that regulate it and the processes that determine its dynamics. That is why biologists are dedicated to studying the similarities and differences between the species, and to order them into various classification "realms", which are:

  • animal Kingdom. Are heterotrophic beings, eukaryotic, multicellular, which have a capacity to movement highly developed.
  • vegetal kingdom. Are autotrophic beings, eukaryotic, multicellular and immobile, which obtain their energy generally from the use of the sunlight (photosynthesis).
  • Mushroom kingdom. They are heterotrophic, eukaryotic beings, mostly multicellular and immobile, that take advantage of the organic material available to feed.
  • Protist kingdom. Are the microscopic beings, which correspond to a great diversity of organisms. They are eukaryotes (cells with a membrane that delimits the core), mainly unicellular, although they can also be colonial or simple multicellular that do not form tissues.
  • Bacterial kingdom. They form the simplest group of forms of unicellular life, along with archaea, and are prokaryotic organisms (cells without a nuclear membrane). They are the most abundant form of life in the planet.
  • Kingdom of the archaea. With an evolutionary history different from those bacteria, are very simple and primitive prokaryotic unicellular organisms, but closer in metabolism and other functions to eukaryotes.

History of biology

The human being He has always been intrigued by its origins and by what distinguishes it from the other animals that populate the world. The naturalism and the traditions They date from ancient times to ancient Egypt and Greece, although they were based on mystical or religious interpretations of the reality.

The term "biology" comes from the 19th century, a consequence of the Scientific Revolutions and the Age of Reason, and is attributed to Karl Friedrich Burdach, although there are previous mentions. But that is when it emerged as an independent study separate from the philosophy; not like in ancient times, when you tried to get the truth through the reasoning pure instead of experimentation.

The discovery of the evolution and the genetics, with the studies of Darwin and Mendel respectively, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, led biology to its modern stage and more similar to what we understand today.

Importance of biology

Biology helps us understand, value and care for life.

Biology is an important discipline because through it we can unveil the mysteries of life as we know it, including its origin (and our own) and the laws that underpin it. So we can understand what life is exactly and we can look for it in others planets, and we can also value and care for it in our own.

On the other hand, this science provides theoretical and practical inputs to many other scientific disciplines thanks to which diseases can be fought and our quality of life improved.

Biology areas

Contemporary biology has a very high level of diversification, reflected in its many branches, depending on the specific type of living beings me ecosystems of your interest, or the perspective you take on them:

  • Zoology. It is the specific study of animal Kingdom in its different variants and levels.
  • Botany. It is the study of the plant kingdom: plants, trees, algae and some other photosynthetic forms.
  • Ecology. It is the study of the relationships of different living beings with each other and with their environment.
  • Microbiology. It is the study of microscopic life, that is, that which cannot be seen with the naked eye.
  • Parasitology. It is the study of animals that survive at the expense of other living beings, harming them as they invade their organisms.
  • Genetics. It is the study of life in the laws of the transmission of biological information and generational inheritance.
  • Biochemistry. It is the study of the chemical and molecular processes of living beings and the substances they generate.
  • Marine biology. It is the study of the forms of life found in the oceans and the coasts.
  • Biotechnology. It is the study of biological laws with a view to their industrial or technological use: biological pesticides, organic fertilizers, etc.
  • Systematic. It deals with the classification of the species of known living beings, from the understanding of their evolutionary or phylogenetic history.

Auxiliary Sciences

Biology is part of other Sciences and disciplines, such as biochemistry (sum of biology and chemistry), biophysics (sum of biology and physics), astrobiology (sum of biology and astronomy), biomedicine (sum of biology and medicine), etc.

At the same time, he borrows material from chemistry, math, the physical and the various engineering and computer science, to compose your methods of analysis and of measurementas well as building your own specialized tools and devices.

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