Biology/Citable Version
(from Greek βίος λόγος)
Biology is the science of life. Biologists study all aspects of living things, including the processes in organisms that enable life. These basic processes include the making and harnessing of energy, the creation and duplication of the materials that make up the body, and the healing of injuries.
Life forms have been of interest to all peoples throughout history. Detailed knowledge about plants and animals has improved people's standard of living through agriculture and animal husbandry. Biology differs from the general human interest in plants, animals and our own bodies by using a systematic approach to study.
The natural history of plants and animals was the first area of biology to develop. Whole organisms were studied in an attempt to make sense of the order of Nature.
A workable classification of living things was made practical by Linneas using a form of systematic nomenclature he invented.
Early experimental biology revealed the circulation of the blood (Harvey), the
History of the word "biology"
Formed by combining the Greek βίος (bios), meaning 'life', and λόγος (logos), meaning 'study of', the word "biology" in its modern sense seems to have been introduced independently by Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus (Biologie oder Philosophie der lebenden Natur, 1802) and by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (Hydrogéologie, 1802). The word itself is sometimes said to have been coined in 1800 by Karl Friedrich Burdach, but it appears in the title of Volume 3 of Michael Christoph Hanov's Philosophiae naturalis sive physicae dogmaticae: Geologia, biologia, phytologia generalis et dendrologia, published in 1766.
History
Major discoveries in biology include:
External links
- [1] The American Institute of Biological Sciences (ABIBS) Virtual Library is free to all visitors