Biology in modern natural science. Characteristics of the “images” of biology (traditional, physico-chemical, evolutionary). General characteristics of modern biology What special characterizes modern biology
In the organic world, there are 5 kingdoms: bacteria (grass), plants, animals, fungi, viruses. These living organisms are studied according to the sciences: bacteriology and microbiology, botany, zoology, mycology, virology. Each of these sciences is divided into sections. For example, zoology includes entomology, theriology, ornithology, ichthyology, etc. each group of animals is studied according to the plan: anatomy, morphology, histology, zoogeography, ethology, etc. In addition to these sections, you can also name: biophysics, biochemistry, biometrics, cytology, histology, genetics, ecologists, selection, space biology, genetic engineering and many others.
Thus, modern biology is a complex of sciences that study living things.
But this differentiation would lead science to a dead end if there were no integrating science - general biology. It unites all biological sciences at the theoretical and practical levels.
- 1. Molecular. Any living system, no matter how complex it is organized, consists of biological macromolecules: nucleic acids, proteins, polysaccharides, as well as other important organic substances. From this level, various vital processes of the body begin: metabolism and energy conversion, transmission of hereditary information, etc.
- 2. Cellular. The cell is a structural and functional unit, as well as a unit of development of all living organisms living on Earth. At the cellular level, the transfer of information and the transformation of substances and energy are coupled.
- 3. Organic. The elementary unit of the organismal level is the individual, which is considered in development - from the moment of origin to the cessation of existence - as a living system. At this level, organ systems arise that are specialized to perform various functions.
- 4. Population-specific. A set of organisms of the same species, united by a common habitat, in which a population is created - a supraorganismal system. In this system, elementary evolutionary transformations are carried out - the process of microevolution.
- 5. Biogeocenotic. Biogeocenosis is a set of organisms of different species "and of varying complexity of organization with the factors of their habitat. In the process of joint historical development of organisms of different systematic groups, dynamic, stable communities are formed. 6. Biosphere. Biosphere is the set of all biogeocenoses, a system that covers all phenomena of life on our planet. At this level, the circulation of substances and the transformation of energy associated with the life of all living organisms occurs.
- 5. Practical significance of general biology.
IN BIOTECHNOLOGY - biosynthesis of proteins, synthesis of antibiotics, vitamins, hormones.
IN AGRICULTURE - selection of highly productive animal breeds and plant varieties.
IN NATURE CONSERVATION - development and implementation of methods for rational and prudent use of natural resources.
Question 1. What does biology study?
Biology– the science of life as a special phenomenon of nature - studies life in all its manifestations: the structure, functioning of living organisms, their behavior, relationships with each other and the environment, as well as the individual and historical development of living things.
Question 2. Why is modern biology considered a complex science?
In the process of progressive development and as it was enriched with new facts, biology was transformed into a complex of sciences that study the patterns inherent in living beings from different angles. Thus, the biological sciences that study animals (zoology), plants (botany), bacteria (microbiology), and viruses (virology) became isolated. The structure of organisms is studied by morphology, the functioning of living systems - physiology, heredity and variability - genetics. The structure and properties of the human body are studied by medicine, in which independent disciplines are distinguished - anatomy, physiology, histology, biochemistry, microbiology. But the main thing is that the knowledge obtained by each of these sciences is combined, mutually complemented, enriched and manifested in the form of biological laws and theories that are universal. The peculiarity of modern biology lies in the affirmation of the principle of unity of the main mechanisms of life support, awareness of the role of the evolutionary process in the existence and changes of the organic world, which includes humans, recognition of the paramount importance of environmental laws with their extension to humans.
Modern biology cannot develop separately from other sciences. Each process or phenomenon characteristic of living systems is studied comprehensively, using the latest knowledge from other scientific fields. Therefore, biology is currently being integrated with chemistry (biochemistry), physics (biophysics), and astronomy (space biology).
Thus, modern biology arose as a result of the differentiation and integration of different scientific disciplines and is a complex science.
Question 3. What is the role of biology in modern society?
The importance of biology in modern society lies in the fact that it serves as the theoretical basis of many sciences. Biological knowledge is used in various spheres of human life. Biology determines the development of modern medicine. Discoveries made in physiology, biochemistry and genetics make it possible to correctly diagnose a patient and select effective treatment. Obtaining new medications, vitamins, and biologically active substances will solve the problem of preventing many diseases. Equally obvious is the importance of biological knowledge in the formation of a doctor’s worldview.
With the development of molecular biology and genetics, it became possible to purposefully change the content of hereditary information in humans, plants and animals. All this gives impetus to the development of modern medicine and breeding. Breeders, thanks to knowledge of the laws of heredity and variability, create new high-yielding varieties of cultivated plants, highly productive breeds of domestic animals, forms of microorganisms used in the food industry, feed production, and pharmaceuticals. Doctors have the opportunity to study human hereditary diseases and find ways to treat them.
In technology, biological knowledge is the theoretical basis for a number of food, light, microbiological and other industries. A new direction of production is developing - biotechnology (food production, search for new energy sources).
At the present stage of development of society, environmental problems have acquired the greatest importance, which makes the process of greening science inevitable, including biology as the science of living organisms. Solving the problem of rational use of biological resources, nature and environmental protection is possible only with the use of biology.
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Biology
This is the science of living things, their structure, forms of their activity, their structure, communities of living organisms, their distribution, development, connections between themselves and their environment.
Modern biological science is the result of a long process of development. But only in the first ancient civilized societies did people begin to study living organisms more carefully, compile lists of animals and plants inhabiting different regions and classify them. One of the first biologists of antiquity was Aristotle. Reviews about Russian fish. Russian fishing company reviews.
Currently, biology is a whole complex of sciences about living nature. Its structure can be viewed from different points of view.
Based on the objects of study, biology is divided into virology, bacteriology, botany, zoology and anthropology.
According to the properties of manifestations of living things in biology, the following are distinguished:
1) morphology - the science of the structure of living organisms;
2) physiology - the science of the functioning of organisms;
3) molecular biology studies the microstructure of living tissues and cells;
4) ecology considers the way of life of plants and animals and their relationship with the environment;
5) genetics studies the laws of heredity and variability.
According to the level of organization of the living objects under study, the following are distinguished:
1) anatomy studies the macroscopic structure of animals;
2) histology studies the structure of tissues;
3) cytology studies the structure of living cells.
This diversity of the complex of biological sciences is due to the extraordinary diversity of the living world. To date, biologists have discovered and described more than 1 million species of animals, about 500 thousand plants, several hundred thousand species of fungi, and more than 3 thousand species of bacteria.
Moreover, the world of wildlife has not been fully explored. The number of undescribed species is estimated at at least 1 million.
There are three main stages in the development of biology:
1) taxonomy (C. Linnaeus);
2) evolutionary (C. Darwin);
3) biology of the microworld (G. Mendel).
Each of them is associated with a change in ideas about the living world and the very foundations of biological thinking.
Three “images” of biology
Traditional or naturalistic biology
The object of study of traditional biology has always been and remains living nature in its natural state and undivided integrity.
Traditional biology has early origins. They go back to the Middle Ages, and its formation into an independent science, called “naturalistic biology,” occurred in the 18th-19th centuries.
Its method was careful observation and description of natural phenomena, the main task was their classification, and the real prospect was to establish the patterns of their existence, meaning and significance for nature as a whole.
The first stage of naturalistic biology was marked by the first classifications of animals and plants. Principles for grouping them into taxa of various levels were proposed. The name of C. Linnaeus is associated with the introduction of binary (designation of genus and species) nomenclature, which has survived almost unchanged to this day, as well as the principle of hierarchical subordination of taxa and their names - classes, orders, genera, species, varieties. However, the disadvantage of Linnaeus's artificial system was that he did not give any instructions regarding the criteria of kinship, which reduced the merit of this system.
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Development of modern biology
The modern world is in rapid development and perfection.
From the first days of his existence, man, while still an infant, tries to understand the world around him. Every day his interest and knowledge also grows and improves.
We are seeing more and more new discoveries; more and more impossible things are becoming accessible to modern man.
Modern biology makes a huge contribution and innovative contribution to the trend of scientific and technological progress.
What does modern biology do? To be brief, biology studies the laws of life, analyzes the stages and sequence of the origin and perfection of living organisms.
If we turn to history, biology emerged as a separate scientific discipline only in the 19th century, but this does not mean that humanity had not previously accumulated knowledge in this area of scientific development. Biology as a modern science makes us understand a lot of what is happening in nature and provides answers to the most difficult questions of interest to humanity.
The main one is the development of life on planet Earth.
Let's remember a little history of the development of modern biology. From textbooks on the history of the ancient world, we know about the enormous and invaluable contribution of scientists of Ancient Greece, such as Aristotle, Hippocrates and Theophrastus, to the development of biology.
Hippocrates was the first to contribute to the description of organs and the anatomical structure of humans and some animals, and raised questions about the dependence of human diseases on the processes of heredity and environmental factors. It is not without reason that the modern world considers Hippocrates the founder of all medicine.
Let's look at some historical chronology -
Aristotle - his works gave rise to taxonomy
Theofest - during his research, described more than 550 species of plants.
Claudius Galen - Gave a comparative description of the anatomy of humans and monkeys.
Leonaplo da Vinci - Made a huge contribution to the taxonomy and description of both plants and human organs.
Karl Baer - developed fundamental aspects of embryology
Theodor Schwan - founder of cell theory
Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur were the first to begin work and experiments in the field of microbiology
Gregor Mendel is known as the pioneer and founder of genetics.
The development of medicine in the Middle Ages also left its mark on scientific works
Of particular note is the famous Persian scientist and doctor Avicenna, who wrote several books and medical textbooks. “The Canon of Medical Science” is perhaps one of the most valuable creations of the scientist and to this day is a textbook for students or, more precisely, is studied by them.
Of the later minds of the scientific world, one certainly cannot ignore Charles Darwin and his evolutionary doctrine of development, where the variability of species is understood as changes under the influence of external factors of the living environment and heredity itself and the very origin of earlier species.
Outstanding discoveries in the field of medicine, including physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, physiology and genetics, made it possible to better understand the innermost secrets of the structure of the body and its activities. For example, creating intracellular microelectrodes allowed us to delve into the life of a cell and achieve great success in the development of modern biology. Using research methods, it was possible to find out the role intracellular formations, and get an idea of the chemical processes occurring in them.
Discovery of the genetic role of nucleic acids, deciphering the code heredity and elucidation of the complex structure of the gene made it possible to correct those “mistakes” that nature sometimes makes and can be the cause of illnesses.
This, in general terms, is the foundation of modern scientific medicine. Once upon a time, the basic patterns of the molecular mechanism of mutagenesis - hereditary variability - were identified microorganisms. This made it possible to manage some inheritance processes and physiological functions.
What is the importance of this problem for practice? It is known that under the influence of various drugs, especially antibiotics, microorganisms that cause certain diseases change. Previously tested and effective medicinal and preventative measures suddenly turn out to be insufficiently effective.
Such things have been studied in laboratories common and dysentery pathogens dangerous to humans. Subtle biochemical studies carried out at the molecular level have brought fundamentally new data on the structure and chemical composition of pathogens microorganisms, showed that previous ideas about their role in the occurrence of diseases were incomplete and one-sided. It turned out that hereditary variability microorganisms led to the emergence of new forms of them - filterable, L-forms, mycoplasmas.
What is, for example, L-shape? This is a special stage of development of a bacterial cell that has lost its outer shell. The microbe acquires a different, unusual for it and therefore difficult to recognize form and biological properties.
This hereditary change occurs as a result of the action of various substances, most often medicinal, or the protective forces of the human body. For a bacterium it has adaptive meaning . It may seem paradoxical to the uninitiated that a cell without a membrane, “undressed,” becomes less sensitive to both protective antibodies produced by the body and to drugs. The secret here is simple: both drugs and antibodies act specifically on the cell wall of the pathogens. If it is not there, the “target” at which the drugs are aimed disappears.
Similar to L-forms are mycoplasmas - special tiny bacteria. Their role in the development of pneumonia and other infectious diseases with an unclear course, for example, joint damage, was clarified.
Modified forms of bacteria are extremely difficult to identify. The point is not only that the diseases they cause proceed in a unique way and give a significantly different picture of the process from the one previously familiar to doctors. More importantly, such bacteria do not grow well on traditional nutrient media. Laboratory sowing of their crops turned out to be “low-yielding,” and this confused the cards for the diagnosis: it turned out that the pathogen seemed not to be in the body.
The use of scientific experimental methods and fine instruments made it possible to isolate L-forms of bacteria, as well as from the blood of patients with rheumatism and septic endocarditis, meningitis and meningoencephalitis. As a result, it was possible to significantly improve the diagnosis of the implicit, “erased” course of these and some other (for example, brucellosis and tuberculosis) diseases. Knowledge of the reasons for the “intractability” of L-forms to current medications helps to find new treatment options.
The prospects and achievements of the application of genetics in the prevention and treatment of hereditary human diseases are equally broad. First of all, new knowledge helps to identify and take measures to eliminate harmful environmental factors, conditioning the very occurrence of such diseases.
Previously, for the treatment of hereditary diseases, medications and hormonal drugs were used, which allowed only to some extent to eliminate the harmful manifestations of improper functioning of the body. Subsequently, prospects were opened to eliminate the root cause itself. This is a way of introducing genetic material into the body, it corrects or replaces abnormal genes. A new important direction in science is called “genetic engineering”.
Knowledge of the biochemical basis of cell function has helped us understand the mechanism of development of cardiovascular diseases at a new level. Among them, doctors are most concerned about the problem of atherosclerosis.
Not so long ago, it was believed that excess nutrition and low physical activity were to blame for the occurrence of this disease. Of course, these factors are important. But it turned out that they are not the only ones, but only ordinary ones among many other factors leading to the disease. Cholesterol deposits in the walls of blood vessels are not the root cause, but a consequence of deeper hormonal disorders. It was also found out that complexes of protein and fat that form in the blood during this disease become, as it were, foreign to the body and cause its protective, immunological reaction Some scientists believed that blocking this reaction could be one of the methods for preventing atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular diseases.
The study of the composition of blood flowing in and out of the heart made it possible to identify metabolic features in diseased and healthy heart muscle. At one time, a neurogenic theory of the origin of hypertension, the development of coronary heart disease and myocardial infarction was developed. She played a significant role in the successes that medicine managed to achieve in the fight against these ailments. However, not all the causes of the occurrence and development of cardiovascular diseases are known. It is necessary to delve deeper into the essence of biochemical changes not only in the circulatory organs, but also in the central nerve cell.
The development of biochemistry and modern molecular biology has led to significant progress in the study malignant tumors and themselves. Experiments have proven a very important point: it turns out that viruses of certain animal species can cause malignant tumors and others. Of particular note are experiments on monkeys. When he introduced human material, the animals developed a nervous disease. The virus was isolated - speculative“culprit” of the disease - and its participation in the development of the disease in people and its role in modern biology.
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26. Biology in modern natural science. Characteristics of the “images” of biology (traditional, physico-chemical, evolutionary).
Biology is the science of living things, their structure, forms of their activity, their structure, communities of living organisms, their distribution, development, connections between themselves and their environment.
Modern biological science is the result of a long process of development. But only in the first ancient civilized societies did people begin to study living organisms more carefully, compile lists of animals and plants inhabiting different regions and classify them. One of the first biologists of antiquity was Aristotle.
Currently, biology is a whole complex of sciences about living nature. Its structure can be viewed from different points of view.
By objects of study biology is divided into virology, bacteriology, botany, zoology and anthropology.
According to the properties of the manifestation of living things in biology there are:
1) morphology- the science of the structure of living organisms;
2) physiology- the science of the functioning of organisms;
3) molecularbiology studies the microstructure of living tissues and cells;
4) ecology examines the lifestyle of plants and animals and their relationships with the environment;
5) genetics explores the laws of heredity and variability.
According to the level of organization of the living objects under study, the following are distinguished:
1) anatomy studies the macroscopic structure of animals;
2) histology studies the structure of tissues;
3) cytology studies the structure of living cells.
This diversity of the complex of biological sciences is due to the extraordinary diversity of the living world. To date, biologists have discovered and described more than 1 million species of animals, about 500 thousand plants, several hundred thousand species of fungi, and more than 3 thousand species of bacteria.
Moreover, the world of wildlife has not been fully explored. The number of undescribed species is estimated at at least 1 million.
In the development of biology there are three main stages:
1) taxonomy(C. Linnaeus);
2) evolutionary(C. Darwin);
3) biologymicroworld(G. Mendel).
Each of them is associated with a change in ideas about the living world and the very foundations of biological thinking.
Three “images” of biology.
Traditional or naturalistic biology.
The object of study of traditional biology has always been and remains living nature in its natural state and undivided integrity.
Traditional biology has early origins. They go back to the Middle Ages, and its formation into an independent science, called “naturalistic biology,” occurred in the 18th-19th centuries.
Its method was careful observation and description of natural phenomena, the main task was their classification, and the real prospect was to establish the patterns of their existence, meaning and significance for nature as a whole.
The first stage of naturalistic biology was marked by the first classifications of animals and plants. Principles for grouping them into taxa of various levels were proposed. The name of C. Linnaeus is associated with the introduction of binary (designation of genus and species) nomenclature, which has survived almost unchanged to this day, as well as the principle of hierarchical subordination of taxa and their names - classes, orders, genera, species, varieties. However, the disadvantage of Linnaeus's artificial system was that he did not give any instructions regarding the criteria of kinship, which reduced the merit of this system.
More “natural”, i.e. reflecting family ties were systems created by botanists - A. L. Jussier (1748-1836), O. P. Decandolle (1778-1841) and, in particular, J. B. Lamarck (1744-1829).
Lamarck's work was built on the idea of development from simple to complex, and the main question was the question of the origin of individual groups and the family ties between them.
It should be noted that during the period of the formation of traditional biology, a comprehensive, as we say today, systematic approach to the study of nature was laid down.
Physico-chemical, or experimental biology.
The term “physicochemical biology” was introduced in the 1970s by the organic chemist Yu. A. Ovchinnikov, a supporter of the close integration of the natural sciences and the introduction of modern precise physical and chemical methods into biology in order to study the elementary levels of the organization of living matter - molecular and supramolecular .
The concept of “physicochemical biology” is two-dimensional.
On the one hand, this concept means that the subject of study of physicochemical biology is objects of living nature studied at the molecular and supramolecular levels.
On the other hand, its original meaning is preserved: the use of physical and chemical methods to decipher the structures and functions of living nature at all levels of its organization.
Although this distinction is rather arbitrary, the main thing is considered to be the following: physical and chemical biology contributed most to the rapprochement of biology with the exact physical and chemical sciences and the establishment of natural science as a unified science of nature.
This does not mean that biology has lost its individuality. Just the opposite. The study of the structure, functions and self-reproduction of the fundamental molecular structures of living matter, the results of which were reflected in the form of postulates or axioms, did not deprive biology of its special position in the system of natural science. The reason for this is that these molecular structures perform biological functions.
It should be noted that in no other field of natural science, as in biology, is such a deep connection found between the methods and techniques of experiment, on the one hand, and the emergence of new ideas, hypotheses, and concepts, on the other.
When considering the history of methods of physical and chemical biology, five stages can be distinguished, which are located among themselves in both historical and logical sequence. In other words, innovations at one stage invariably stimulated the transition to the next.
What are these methods?
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