Why Study Biology?
Biology is the study of our body and its environment. It is the science of our lives. For you, studying biology will help in understanding the functions and reactions of your body. It will explain your similarity or difference with other. Also, it can explain your similarity of differences with others. Also, it can explain your behavior in various situations. Thus, biology should be great importance to you because it will give you the answers to the countless questions you might have about yourself
What is Biology?
Biology literally means “study of life”. It comes from two Greek words, “bios” (life) and “logos” (word or reason, or study science). Biology is the science that deals with structure, functions, and relationships of living things and their environment.
Biology is such a broad field and may be studied at various levels – molecular, cellular, organismal, population, community or ecosystems. Traditionally, there are three major divisions of the biological sciences:
These major divisions may be further subdivided into specialized fields or branches that often correlate or overlap with one another. Some of these branches include:
- Taxonomy – the study of naming and classifying organisms.
- Cytology – the study of structures and functions of cells
- Genetics – the study of heredity and variation
- Ecology – the study of relationships of organisms with their environment
- Physiology – the study of function of organisms and their parts
- Embryology – the study of developing of organism
- Evolution – the study of origin and differentiation of various organisms
- Biochemistry – the study of the chemistry and chemical composition of living things
New subdisciplines in biology have also emerged because of the rapidly changing technology. Some of these include:
- Molecular biology – the study of structure, composition, and interaction of the muscles that make up on organism.
- Genomics – the study of the entire genetic material of an organism.
- Proteomics – the study of the different proteins found in an organism.
- Immunology – the study of the immune system.
- Bioinformatics – study of the application and use of computers to process and analyze biological data.
Modern biology is integrative in the sense that a biology question may be studied from different fields as diverse as biochemistry and behavior and from different vantage point ranging from molecules to whole organisms and even ecosystem. Many biologists use the comparative approach in studying molecules, structures, organisms, ecosystems, etc. This is necessary to understand the biodiversity and evolutionary change.
Biology as a Science
One of the benefits of being a student studying biology is that you will become more familiar with the processes of science. Science is an objective, logical, and repeatable attempt to understand the principles and forces operating in the natural universe. In a biological point of view, science is a body of systematized information about living things derived from observations and experimentations.
In order to conduct science, one must know the rules of the game! The scientific method is used as its guide and biologist use the method in solving problems.
The steps of the scientific methods are:
- Observation – identifying and clearly defining the problem.
- Hypothesis – formulating a working explanation or an intelligent guess about the problem.
- Experimentation – conducting controlled attempts to test one or more hypothesis; includes recording and analyzing results.
- Conclusion – formulating a generalization about the results, which may accept, reject, or modify the hypothesis.
Asking questions and being curious about anything is the beginning of a scientific method. Biologist want to know “whys” and “hows” of their observations. Many great experiments and discoveries in biology started as simple observation. The discovery of the smallpox vaccine by the English physician Edward Jenner in 1796 started this way.
OBSERVATION
Farmer who were previously infected with cowpox disease rarely contracted the deadly smallpox disease.
Dr. Jenner identified the problem – how to control the deadly disease smallpox. Because of his observation, he formulated an intelligent guess that could explain the problem.
HYPOTHESIS
Cowpox exposure could render protection to persons against catching smallpox.
Dr. Jenner was aware that both diseases were caused by biological agents (which we now call viruses), which are found on the skin sore of patients. With this in mind, he designed and performed an experiment in order to validate his working explanation.
EXPERIMANTATION
Dr. Jenner extracted some pus from a cowpox sore of a patient and inoculated it into the arm of a healthy boy. This resulted in the development of cowpox sore after several days. After six weeks, he injected the boy with some pus from a smallpox sore. The boy did not develop smallpox disease.
The experiment was repeated several times using different patients and the same results were noted. Dr. Jenner then made a generalization to accept his hypothesis.
CONCLUSION
Transfer of pus from a cowpox sore renders immunity against smallpox infection.
As a student of biology, you need to get into the habit of asking scientific questions about anything you observe. Observations could happen anywhere, anytime – while you are eating, on your way home, in your garden, or even when you are just staring at your surroundings. The next time you observe something of biological importance, think of some related questions you can transform into the problem of your scientific quest. It is a challenge!!!
By continuously asking simple questions, we make the learning of biology interesting and fun. Always be mindful that asking the right question is far more important than knowing the right answers. Biology is to be enjoyed. Human beings are by nature curious about things around them. We probe, experiment, theorize and in the process discover the secrets of nature. This process has also created great civilization, improved our quality of life, and made us the dominant species on EARTH!!!
Science is Amazing, Learning is Fun
@jaysonbutalonReference
BIOLOGY Ramos and Morales-Ramos