Definition for Biology

From Biology Forums Dictionary

Biology is the study of life and the processes thereof. The term biology was coined in the late 1700s by the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck (who also coined the word 'invertebrate').

Biologists study general principles of how living things work in biochemistry, genetics, and physiology. They investigate organisms' morphology, anatomy, behavior, and ontogeny to learn about function and identity. To find out how organisms interact among each other and with the environment, biologists investigate their ecology. At the microscopic level, biologists study their cell biology.

One of the central concepts in biology is the principle of evolution. The evolutionary history of an organism, i.e., the sequence of ancestral species, is called its phylogeny; it is studied using methods of molecular biology by analyzing biopolymer sequences of genes and proteins, and by investigating ancient forms of life in paleontology. Various methodologies have been developed, including phylogenetics, phenetics, and cladistics.