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Biology and Its Etymology

Biology is the natural science focused on the study of life and living organisms, emphasizing concepts such as the cell as the basic unit of life, genes as the unit of heredity, and evolution as a driving force. It encompasses various sub-disciplines, including theoretical and experimental biology, which utilize different research methods to explore life's mechanisms and origins. The term 'biology' has its roots in Ancient Greek and has evolved over time, with significant contributions from early scientists like Carl Linnaeus and Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus.

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32 views2 pages

Biology and Its Etymology

Biology is the natural science focused on the study of life and living organisms, emphasizing concepts such as the cell as the basic unit of life, genes as the unit of heredity, and evolution as a driving force. It encompasses various sub-disciplines, including theoretical and experimental biology, which utilize different research methods to explore life's mechanisms and origins. The term 'biology' has its roots in Ancient Greek and has evolved over time, with significant contributions from early scientists like Carl Linnaeus and Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus.

Uploaded by

Ian Bernalte
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Biology is the natural science that studies life and living organisms, including their physical structure,

chemical processes, molecular interactions, physiological mechanisms, development and evolution.[1]


Despite the complexity of the science, certain unifying concepts consolidate it into a single, coherent
field. Biology recognizes the cell as the basic unit of life, genes as the basic unit of heredity, and
evolution as the engine that propels the creation and extinction of species. Living organisms are open
systems that survive by transforming energy and decreasing their local entropy[2] to maintain a stable
and vital condition defined as homeostasis.[3]

Sub-disciplines of biology are defined by the research methods employed and the kind of system
studied: theoretical biology uses mathematical methods to formulate quantitative models while
experimental biology performs empirical experiments to test the validity of proposed theories and
understand the mechanisms underlying life and how it appeared and evolved from non-living matter
about 4 billion years ago through a gradual increase in the complexity of the system.[4][5][6]

Contents

1 Etymology

2 History

3 Foundations of modern biology

3.1 Cell theory

3.2 Evolution

3.3 Genetics

3.4 Homeostasis

3.5 Energy

4 Study and research

4.1 Structural

4.2 Physiological

4.3 Evolutionary

4.4 Systematic

4.5 Kingdoms

4.6 Ecological and environmental

5 Basic unresolved problems in biology


6 Branches and career options

7 See also

8 Notes

9 References

10 Further reading

11 External links

Etymology

"Biology" derives from the Ancient Greek words of βίος; romanized bíos meaning "life" and -λογία;
romanized logía (-logy) meaning "branch of study" or "to speak". [7][8] Those combined make the Greek
word βιολογία; romanized biología meaning biology. Despite this, the term βιολογία as a whole didn't
exist in Ancient Greek. The first to borrow it was the English and French (biologie). Historically there was
another term for "biology" in English, lifelore; it is rarely used today.

The Latin-language form of the term first appeared in 1736 when Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus (Carl
von Linné) used biologi in his Bibliotheca Botanica. It was used again in 1766 in a work entitled
Philosophiae naturalis sive physicae: tomus III, continens geologian, biologian, phytologian generalis, by
Michael Christoph Hanov, a disciple of Christian Wolff. The first German use, Biologie, was in a 1771
translation of Linnaeus' work. In 1797, Theodor Georg August Roose used the term in the preface of a
book, Grundzüge der Lehre van der Lebenskraft. Karl Friedrich Burdach used the term in 1800 in a more
restricted sense of the study of human beings from a morphological, physiological and psychological
perspective (Propädeutik zum Studien der gesammten Heilkunst). The term came into its modern usage
with the six-volume treatise Biologie, oder Philosophie der lebenden Natur (1802–22) by Gottfried
Reinhold Treviranus, who announced:[9]

The objects of our research will be the different forms and manifestations of life, the conditions and
laws under which these phenomena occur, and the causes through which they have been affected. The
science that concerns itself with these objects we will indicate by the name biology [Biologie] or the
doctrine of life [Lebenslehre].

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