Why Care About Biology?

Aug 1

4 min read

Other than culture, my other major topic will be biology. So, I feel it's important to go over what biology is and why we care.

Biology, as most of you may know, is the study of life and living organisms. However, the three main branches of biology that I'll be focusing on are genetics, evolutionary biology, and human biology.

Genetics

Genetics is one of the many branches of biology. It is the study of genes and heredity (1). Genes are units of hereditary information made up of DNA that code for proteins and various physical traits in organisms. While the concept of passing on traits has been accepted for centuries, it wasn't until the 18th century that biologist Gregor Mendel actually started researching the concepts of genes and proved their existence.

It is essential to understand genes since they serve multiple purposes.

Inheritance: Understanding how genes are passed to offspring can help us understand inheritance and genetic disorders.
Medicine: Understanding the genetic basis of a genetic disorder can aid us in discovering possible cures of treatments for that disorder. Additionally, it opens up the world of personalized medicine. (2)
Evolution: Genes can give insight into how previous organisms evolved over time. If we know how they adapted, we can utilize that information to current conservation efforts and protect endangered species.

The field of genetics is also growing at an exponential rate. With the human genome project under their belt, the field of genetics has an improved arsenal. With the project, they have made genetic tests that can help doctors identify different genetic disorders in patients. Gene therapy has also been created. Gene therapy is a medical technique used to prevent or treat a disease in a person. Finally, we can now use genes to predict cancer, which is something we wouldn't have even considered decades ago. (2)

Given all the purposes that genetics serves, including the ones I didn't mention, it's clear that this field of biology is crucial to our understanding of the world and improving it as a whole (3).

Evolutionary Biology

Evolutionary Biology is a subfield of biology that focuses on the evolutionary processes that produce diversity on this planet (4). It's centered on one of the biggest central concepts in biology: evolution. The theory of evolution didn't become a scientific theory until biologist Charles Darwin published his book On the Origins of Species (5). Eventually, evolutionary biology came to be and is studied all over the world.

Now, even though evolutionary biology is a very big branch of biology, many people don't understand its use today. Despite what most people think, evolutionary biology is still utilized today. There are a lot of purposes of evolutionary biology in the modern world:

Conservation: Evolutionary biology helps us understand the diversity on Earth and how different organisms can interact with one another in an ecosystem. This helps conserve these organisms by assessing their biodiversity and understanding what needs to be done to protect endangered species. (6)
Adaptation: Looking at how previous organisms adapted to different scenarios, we can utilize that information and predict how organisms today might respond to those same changes.
Agriculture: Understanding the adaptative nature of crops can help us create more resilient crops that are more sustainable and reliable for the future. (7)

Given all the uses of evolutionary biology today, this field of biology is clearly still thriving and will continue to do so for centuries to come.

Human Biology

Human biology is the branch of biology that studies humans through the interactions of various fields, including genetics, evolution, anthropology, anatomy, epidemiology, physiology, and ecology (8). Human biology has been a heavily studied topic, not only about how we function and work, but also with how we interact with our changing societies and environments as a whole (10).

Studying human biology is very vital, especially with the rise of COVID-19 and other new obstacles being thrown at humanity. Human biology in the modern era is focused on two main things:

Health: Human biology would most logically be concerned with the health of human's by analyzing how the body worked. Whether it's through designing new medicine for humans, researching different disorders and diseases, or understanding mental illnesses.
Environment: Human biology is also concerned how we interact with the environment around us, either positively or negatively. This is mainly seen in biological anthropology but is also seen in human biology since it borrows from several different disciplines.

With our society and world changing every day, human biology will always be needed.

Conclusion

From this post, you can see that all three of these branches still have relevance and will continue to do so for decades or even centuries. All three of these branches of biology will be prominent on this blog. You may have noticed that all of these branches tend to have a lot of overlap with one another. For me, having a "big picture" helps when I try to understand a certain topic, so having three different topics with lots of similarities helps me understand better and create this bigger understanding for myself and my audience. If any of this interests you, I suggest you stick around.

Why Care About Biology?

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