Unit 1: Biology, Science, and Society
- Page ID
- 108038
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Thumbnail: "Nature bird" by @Doug88888 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
- 1.2: Themes and Concepts of Biology
- From its earliest beginnings, biology has wrestled with three questions: What are the shared properties that make something “alive”? And once we know something is alive, how do we find meaningful levels of organization in its structure? And, finally, when faced with the remarkable diversity of life, how do we organize the different kinds of organisms so that we can better understand them? As new organisms are discovered every day, biologists continue to seek answers to these and other questions.
- 1.3: The Nature of Science
- In simple terms, biology is the study of living organisms and their interactions with one another and their environments. This is a very broad definition because the scope of biology is vast. Biologists may study anything from the microscopic or submicroscopic view of a cell to ecosystems and the whole living planet.