{"id":108,"date":"2016-09-20T17:38:15","date_gmt":"2016-09-20T17:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.hcfl.edu\/bio1\/part\/themes-and-concepts-of-biology\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T16:41:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T16:41:09","slug":"themes-and-concepts-of-biology","status":"publish","type":"part","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.hcfl.edu\/bio1\/part\/themes-and-concepts-of-biology\/","title":{"raw":"Chapter II: Themes and Concepts of Biology","rendered":"Chapter II: Themes and Concepts of Biology"},"content":{"raw":"<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\r\n<h2>Learning Objectives<\/h2>\r\n<div>\r\n\r\nBy the end of this section, you will be able to:\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Describe characteristics that can be used to determine if something is living.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nBiology is the science that studies life. What exactly is life? This may sound like a silly question with an obvious answer, but it is not easy to define life. For example, a branch of biology called virology studies viruses, which exhibit some of the characteristics of living entities but lack others. It turns out that although viruses can attack living organisms, cause diseases, and even reproduce, they do not meet all the criteria that biologists use to define life.\r\n\r\nFrom its earliest beginnings, biology has wrestled with four questions: What are the shared properties that make something \u201calive\u201d? How do those various living things function? When faced with the remarkable diversity of life, how do we organize the different kinds of organisms so that we can better understand them? And, finally\u2014what biologists ultimately seek to understand\u2014how did this diversity arise and how is it continuing? As new organisms are discovered every day, biologists continue to seek answers to these and other questions.\r\n\r\n<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_107\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"300\"]<img class=\"wp-image-107 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/pressbooks.hcfl.edu\/bio1\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2016\/09\/1.1.earth_-300x161.jpg\" alt=\"1-1-earth\" width=\"300\" height=\"161\" \/> Figure 1 This NASA image is a composite of several satellite-based views of Earth. To make the whole-Earth image, NASA scientists combine observations of different parts of the planet. (credit: modification of work by NASA)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nViewed from space, Earth (<strong>Figure 1<\/strong>) offers few clues about the diversity of life forms that reside there. The first forms of life on Earth are thought to have been microorganisms that existed for billions of years before plants and animals appeared. The mammals, birds, and flowers so familiar to us are all relatively recent, originating 130 to 200 million years ago. Humans have inhabited this planet for only the last 2.5 million years, and only in the last 200,000 years have humans started looking like we do today.\r\n<div class=\"textbox\">\r\n<h2><strong>Chapter II: Themes and Concepts of Biology<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n<h3><strong>Licenses and Attribution<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<strong>CC Licensed Content, Original:<\/strong>\r\nThis educational material includes AI-generated content from ChatGPT by OpenAI. The original content created by Dr. Zeinab Motawe from Hillsborough College is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).\r\nAll images in this textbook generated with DALL-E are licensed under the terms provided by OpenAI, allowing for their free use, modification, and distribution with appropriate attribution.\r\n\r\n<strong>CC Licensed Content, Shared Previously:<\/strong>\r\nAdapted from:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Bartee, L., &amp; Anderson, C. (2019). <em><a class=\"decorated-link\" href=\"https:\/\/openoregon.pressbooks.pub\/mhccbiology101\/\" target=\"_new\" rel=\"noopener\">General Biology I: Survey of Cellular Biology<\/a><\/em>, CC BY 4.0.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\n<h2>Learning Objectives<\/h2>\n<div>\n<p>By the end of this section, you will be able to:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>Describe characteristics that can be used to determine if something is living.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Biology is the science that studies life. What exactly is life? This may sound like a silly question with an obvious answer, but it is not easy to define life. For example, a branch of biology called virology studies viruses, which exhibit some of the characteristics of living entities but lack others. It turns out that although viruses can attack living organisms, cause diseases, and even reproduce, they do not meet all the criteria that biologists use to define life.<\/p>\n<p>From its earliest beginnings, biology has wrestled with four questions: What are the shared properties that make something \u201calive\u201d? How do those various living things function? When faced with the remarkable diversity of life, how do we organize the different kinds of organisms so that we can better understand them? And, finally\u2014what biologists ultimately seek to understand\u2014how did this diversity arise and how is it continuing? As new organisms are discovered every day, biologists continue to seek answers to these and other questions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_107\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-107\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-107 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/pressbooks.hcfl.edu\/bio1\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2016\/09\/1.1.earth_-300x161.jpg\" alt=\"1-1-earth\" width=\"300\" height=\"161\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pressbooks.hcfl.edu\/bio1\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2016\/09\/1.1.earth_-300x161.jpg 300w, https:\/\/pressbooks.hcfl.edu\/bio1\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2016\/09\/1.1.earth_-65x35.jpg 65w, https:\/\/pressbooks.hcfl.edu\/bio1\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2016\/09\/1.1.earth_-225x121.jpg 225w, https:\/\/pressbooks.hcfl.edu\/bio1\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2016\/09\/1.1.earth_-350x188.jpg 350w, https:\/\/pressbooks.hcfl.edu\/bio1\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2016\/09\/1.1.earth_.jpg 468w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-107\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Figure 1 This NASA image is a composite of several satellite-based views of Earth. To make the whole-Earth image, NASA scientists combine observations of different parts of the planet. (credit: modification of work by NASA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Viewed from space, Earth (<strong>Figure 1<\/strong>) offers few clues about the diversity of life forms that reside there. The first forms of life on Earth are thought to have been microorganisms that existed for billions of years before plants and animals appeared. The mammals, birds, and flowers so familiar to us are all relatively recent, originating 130 to 200 million years ago. Humans have inhabited this planet for only the last 2.5 million years, and only in the last 200,000 years have humans started looking like we do today.<\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox\">\n<h2><strong>Chapter II: Themes and Concepts of Biology<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3><strong>Licenses and Attribution<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>CC Licensed Content, Original:<\/strong><br \/>\nThis educational material includes AI-generated content from ChatGPT by OpenAI. The original content created by Dr. Zeinab Motawe from Hillsborough College is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).<br \/>\nAll images in this textbook generated with DALL-E are licensed under the terms provided by OpenAI, allowing for their free use, modification, and distribution with appropriate attribution.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CC Licensed Content, Shared Previously:<\/strong><br \/>\nAdapted from:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Bartee, L., &amp; Anderson, C. (2019). <em><a class=\"decorated-link\" href=\"https:\/\/openoregon.pressbooks.pub\/mhccbiology101\/\" target=\"_new\" rel=\"noopener\">General Biology I: Survey of Cellular Biology<\/a><\/em>, CC BY 4.0.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"parent":0,"menu_order":2,"template":"","meta":{"pb_part_invisible":false,"pb_part_invisible_string":""},"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-108","part","type-part","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.hcfl.edu\/bio1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.hcfl.edu\/bio1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.hcfl.edu\/bio1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/part"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.hcfl.edu\/bio1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1339,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.hcfl.edu\/bio1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/108\/revisions\/1339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.hcfl.edu\/bio1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.hcfl.edu\/bio1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=108"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.hcfl.edu\/bio1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}