Biology: history, branches, principles and characteristics

We explain what biology is, its history and what branches it consists of. Also, its characteristics and fundamental principles.

Biology empirically studies the very foundations of life.

What is Biology?

Biology is called (from the Greek bíos, “life” and logy, “science, knowledge”) a branch of exact sciences whose object of study is living beings: their origin, evolution, growth, reproduction and their various mechanisms of existence.

It can be said that biology empirically studies the very foundations of life to find the rules that explain it and allow us to understand it more deeply.

Thus, biologists They study the similarities and differences between various forms of life known, throughout the various realms of its classification.

Today, biology is one of the largest and most diverse fields of scientific knowledge and work, which both feeds on and collaborates with other branches of science such as chemistry, physics and medicine.

history of biology

Biology itself will emerge with the invention of the scientific method.

Biology as an independent field of study did not always exist, since In ancient times, their fields of interest were the subject of philosophy.which attempted to decipher the laws of life (and the world) through pure reasoning, rather than experimentation.

Biology itself will emerge with the invention of science and the scientific methoda series of empirical and verifiable steps to deduce the laws of nature.

Origin of the term Biology

The term “biology” It was coined in 1800 and is attributed to Karl Friedrich Burdach, although there are some mentions prior to that date.

Biology areas

Marine biology studies the life forms found in the sea.

Contemporary biology has diversified greatly, which is why it consists of numerous branches dedicated to the study of a specific type of living beings or a specific type of vital ecosystem or specific biological topics. Some examples may be:

Zoology. Dedicated to the specific study of the animal kingdom.
Botany. It limits its study to the kingdom of plants, algae and certain types of bacteria that carry out photosynthesis.
Microbiology. In charge of the study of microscopic life.
Parasitology. Interested only in animals that survive at the expense of others.
Genetics. Study of life from the perspective of the transmission of biological information and inheritance.
Biochemistry. It delves into the chemical and molecular functioning of the bodies of living beings and the substances they generate.
Marine biology. Specific study of those life forms found only in the sea.
Biotechnology. Study of the laws of life for pragmatic purposes of industrial or technological use.
Virology. Branch dedicated entirely to the study of viruses.

Principles of biology

Life is a continuous process of change that pushes species to evolve.

All biology is governed by the following precepts based on which human beings scientifically understand the phenomenon of life:

Universality. All known life forms share certain common precepts, such as being made up of cells, or requiring genetic information to pass on to future generations and even the impulse to nourish, grow and reproduce.
Evolution. Life is a continuous process of change that pushes species to compete and evolve, that is, to adapt increasingly better to the environment through physical and biochemical changes inherited from future generations to perpetuate the species (or become extinct).
Diversity. Life on our planet is diverse and varied, which is why there are numerous animal and plant species and the various kingdoms into which life is classified.
Continuity. Life is understood as a continuous process that involves living beings of the present and their direct heirs to come. This means that life has changed over a long chain in time, from 3.5 billion years ago to today.
Homeostasis. This is the name given to the principle according to which life always strives to adapt as best as possible to changes in its surroundings and environment, maintaining a dynamic balance of temperature, pH and the presence of chemical elements.
Interaction. Life cannot occur in isolation, but is always part of a larger system, in which relationships of competition, solidarity and predation occur, which makes biotic systems (ecosystem) difficult to study.

Related sciences

Biology collaborates closely with other sciences and disciplines, such as: biochemistry (biology and chemistry), biophysics (biology and physics)biotechnology (biology and various engineering, agriculture or livestock), astrobiology (biology and astronomy), biomedicine (biology and medicine), etc.

Importance of biology

Biology provides solutions to improve the quality of life.

Biology as a science allows us to approach life and its complex processes with more knowledge, either to understand what life exactly is and to know how to look for it in other places (other planets, for example) or to be able to care for it and protect it from our own excesses.

Furthermore, this science provides theoretical and practical material to numerous other scientific disciplinesthanks to which our quality of life can be improved, diseases combated, etc.

Classification of life

Plants photosynthesize and obtain food from water and sunlight.

One of the central tasks of biology seems to be the classification and description of living beings, for which there is a system of kingdoms (proposed by Carl Linnaeus in the 18th century and reworked several times since then) that distinguishes between:

Animals. Able to move at will, they breathe and require the intake of organic matter to survive. They always reproduce sexually.
Floors. Capable of photosynthesis and providing food from water and sunlight, they are immobile and reproduce sexually and asexually.
Fungus. Similar in cellular structure to plants, they require the decomposition of organic matter to survive, they are immobile and reproduce through spores.
Protists. Beings that cannot be classified into the previous three, but that share their cell type with them (eukaryotic, that is, with a nucleus). There are unicellular and multicellular.
Bacteria. Together with archaea, they form the domain of prokaryotes, that is, cells without a defined nucleus. Bacteria are microscopic, some pathogenic (infectious) and others photosynthetic, and they are the most numerous form of life on the planet.
Archaea. Very simple unicellular organisms that constitute both a kingdom and a domain (depending on the classification) since they have a very different evolutionary history to bacteria, being closer to eukaryotes in terms of biochemistry and metabolism.

Biological disciplines

A biological discipline studies the simple structures of life such as cells.

Given the broad subject matter of biology, it is organized into four sets of disciplines, which are:

The study of the simple structures of life: cells, genes, etc.
The study of the complex structures of life: tissues, organs, bodies, etc.
The study of organisms and their life histories: their development, growth and life processes.
The study of life as a system of interactions: ecosystems, communities, etc.

Future biology

Many questions are being asked today regarding the future of this science, which seems to allow us an increasing degree of interference in life as such.

While some point to a more responsible, wise and informed exercise of biology, There are many theories and representations of dystopian futures in which man has paid the price for manipulating genetics and the laws of biology.

Scientific method

The scientific method is based on observation to create hypotheses.

As said at the beginning, biology uses the scientific method and its principles of observation, measurement, controlled reproduction in the laboratory and formulation of experimental hypotheses, for the study of life forms. Anything that does not resort to this systemic and verifiable method is simply not biology.