1.3 The Significance of Biology in Your Life

Biology is the science that deals with the study of varieties of living organismsincluding ourselves. The significance of biology in your daily life lies in thefact that biology attempts to find out the unifying principle that exists amongdiverse organisms having morphological and functionalinequalities. The significance of biology in yourdaily life can be considered from the two natural divisions of the science itself, plant life andanimal life.

Agriculture plays great role in narrating the significance of biology in your daily life.Agriculture is largely the result of man’s taking the advantage of the interrelations of soil, climate and natural habitat to select those particular combinationsthat meet his basic requirements. Thus to provide necessary food, man dependsentirely on green plants that can alone capture the solar energy. High yielding varieties of crop plantslike rice, wheat, jute,sugar cane, pulsesetc are now bred experimentally. Disease-resistantgrains and vernalized seeds are made. Biological control strategies are undertaken as pest control emphasizing the significance of biologyin your daily life. Modern man does not depend on fishing and hunting like ourancestors and instead rears fishes as well as cattle and various other domestic animals to get food and othernecessities of life. This has resulted in the development of fishery and animal husbandry. The importance of biology in your dailylife lies in the production of clothes and timber for making furniture, insupplied raw materials for paper, dyes, etc. Fossils are important in locatingunderground oil and natural gas reserves. Even coal and mineral oil formed fromdecomposed plant bodies are key to industrialprosperity.

Medical advancement also shows the significance of biologyin your daily lives. The study of dreadeddiseases, their causative agents, cure as well as the actions of drugsare a way of biological enlightenment that strives minimizing human suffering.The significance of biology in your daily life also lies in finding and curing hereditaryabnormalities like haemophilia, Down’ssyndrome, etc. Biology aims in making effort tobetter human race through eugenics. Biology study has a vital role incontrolling environmental pollution and attracted sense of art and beauty.

morphological [mɔ:fə'lɔdʒikəl] adj. 形态学的

functional ['fʌŋkʃənəl]adj. 功能的,实用的

inequality [ini'kwɔləti]n. 不平等,不平均, 不平坦

division [di'viʒən] n. 划分,部门

interrelation [intəri'leiʃən] n. 相互关系

habitat ['hæbitæt] n. 栖息地, 产地

green plants 绿色植物

solar energy 太阳能

jute [dʒu:t] n. 黄麻纤维

sugar cane 甘蔗

pulse [pʌls] n. 豌豆和豆类等结荚植物可食性种子

Disease-resistant adj. 抗病的

grain [grein] n. 谷物, 谷类

vernalize ['və:nəlaiz] v. 施以春化处理, 以人工方法促进发育

biological control 生物学防治

pest control 昆虫防治

domestic [də'mestik] adj. 驯养的

fishery ['fiʃəri] n. 渔场, 渔业

animal husbandry 畜牧业

decompose [di:kəm'pəuz] vi. 分解, 腐烂 vt.腐烂

1.4 The History of Biology – Additional Reading

The history of biology traces the studyof the living world from ancient to modern times. Although the concept ofbiology as a single coherent field arose in the 19th century, the biologicalsciences emerged from traditions of medicine and natural history reaching backto ayurveda, ancient Egyptian medicine and the works of Aristotle and Galen inthe ancient Greco-Roman world.

This ancient work was further developed in the Middle Ages by Muslim physicians andscholars such as Avicenna. During the European Renaissance and early modernperiod, biological thought was revolutionized in Europe by a renewed interestin empiricism and the discovery of many novel organisms. Prominent in this movementwere Vesalius and Harvey, who used experimentation and careful observation in physiology,and naturalists such as Linnaeus and Buffon who began to classify the diversityof life and the fossil record, as well asthe development and behavior of organisms. Microscopy revealed the previously unknown world ofmicroorganisms, laying the groundwork for cell theory. The growing importanceof natural theology, partly a response to the rise of mechanical philosophy, encouraged the growth of naturalhistory (although it entrenched the argument from design).

Over the 18th and 19th centuries, biological sciences such as botany and zoology becameincreasingly professional scientific disciplines. Lavoisier and other physicalscientists began to connect the animate and inanimate worlds through physicsand chemistry. Explorer - naturalists such as Alexander von Humboldtinvestigated the interaction between organisms and their environment, and theways this relationship depends on geography laying the foundations for biogeography, ecology and ethology. Naturalists beganto reject essentialism and consider the importance of extinction and the mutability of species. Cell theory provided a new perspectiveon the fundamental basis of life. These developments, as well as the resultsfrom embryology and paleontology, were synthesized inCharles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. The end of the 19thcentury saw the fall of spontaneous generation and the rise of the germ theory of disease, though the mechanism of inheritance remained a mystery.