- Biology and its relationship with other sciences
- Geography
- Physical
- Chemistry
- Maths
- History
- Engineering
- Sociology
- Logic
- Ethics
- Computing
- Computational molecular biology
- Computational biology
- Biocomputation
- References
Biology is related to other sciences such as geography, physics, chemistry, mathematics, engineering or computer science. In general, it is related to the sciences that allow you to better understand your object of study; life.
Biology is a natural science that ranges from the molecular study of life processes to the study of animal and plant communities. A biologist studies the structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, and distribution of living organisms. Although it also studies viruses.
The description of the characteristics and behaviors of organisms as individuals and as species occupies biologists. For biology, it is important to detail the genesis, morphogenesis, nutrition, reproduction and pathogenesis of living beings, as well as their interaction with the environment.
The study of biology has made it possible to answer elementary questions about life, explain the transformations of living beings and open the doors to innumerable scientific investigations in different fields of knowledge.
Biology and its relationship with other sciences
All science that provides insights into the different aspects and phenomena that enable and occur in organic life, end up being linked to biology. Some of these relationships are reviewed below:
Geography
Geography deals with the study of the Earth and its elements to explain its origin, structure and evolution.
Data like these allow us to know the conditions in which different biological processes take place and whether or not they affect the development of such processes.
Geography can also be useful for a biologist to determine the distribution of species of living organisms at different latitudes of the world, and how that location can affect their characteristics and functions.
Physical
Physics allows us to know biological systems at the molecular or atomic level. The invention of the microscope helped a lot in this.
Physics provides a quantitative approach that allows patterns to be identified. Biology applies natural physical laws, since everything is made up of atoms.
For example, physics allows us to explain how it is that bats use sound waves to move in the dark, or how the movement of the limbs of different animals works.
It was also discoveries in physics that allowed us to understand that there are flowers that arrange their seeds or petals following a Fibonacci series, thus increasing their exposure to light and nutrients.
But the contribution is reciprocal since there are cases in which biology helps to better understand physical laws. Physicist Richard Feynman stated that biology contributed to the formulation of the law of conservation of energy, for example.
There are branches of physics that are making contributions to research on the origin of life and the structure and mechanics of organic life, such as astrophysics and biophysics, respectively.
Both disciplines find their main limitation, so far, in the explanation of the origin of life or the encryption of traits in DNA.
Chemistry
In this case, it is a science whose object of study is matter and its composition, which is why it is very useful to identify and understand the reactions that occur between the different substances that make up and intervene in the different processes that the human body experiences. organism.
Its relevance is recognized more clearly in the description of metabolic processes such as respiration, digestion or photosynthesis.
Maths
Biology requires this science to process, analyze and report data from experimental investigations and to represent relationships between some biological phenomena.
For example, to determine the prevalence of one species over another in a given space, mathematical rules are useful.
History
Biology requires this science to be able to approach the evolutionary process of species. It also allows you to carry out an inventory of species by epoch or historical era.
Engineering
The relationship between biology and engineering is also quite symbiotic as the progress of both disciplines feed back.
For an engineer, knowledge about brain function is useful to design algorithms, for example; while for a biologist, advances in medical engineering, for example, are extremely useful.
Algorithms such as Deep Machine Learning (Deep Learning), or Non-Negative Matrix Factorization (NMF), are based on biological data called “biomedical signals” that are processed in a very specialized way to provide reliable information on the functioning of some human organs.
In fact, techniques are being carried out to improve the technology used in the processing of these signals so that they can be used for medical diagnoses using less invasive methods.
Sociology
The descriptive methods of sociology are useful to categorize and organize the different species as well as their behavior.
Logic
As in any scientific field, this discipline provides the methodological bases to advance research.
Ethics
Ethics dictates the behavioral guidelines to be followed by the people involved in the different studies that are undertaken and that involve living beings. Bioethics arises for that purpose.
Computing
The usefulness of computing is mainly related to the processing of data in the field of biology. Three areas of knowledge emerge in this relationship:
The objective of this area is the research and development of infrastructure and information systems that are required to advance in fields such as molecular biology and genetics.
It helps to understand, through simulation, some biological phenomena such as the physiology of an organ, for example.
In this case, biological knowledge is applied to computing to develop biological models or materials, as is the case with biochips, biosensors, and genetic algorithms, for example.
Some of the computer systems used in biology are: software for visualization, databases, automation of experiments, and programs for sequence analysis, protein prediction, and genetic map assembly.
In fact, it has been argued that teaching biology in the early stages of schooling requires knowledge of physics, chemistry and other sciences. Also, interdisciplinarity has proven to be advantageous in many ways.
References
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- Claskson, María (1985). Research and didactic experiences. Translation of the work by Lucas, AM for the I International Conference on Research in Science and Mathematics Didactics. Barcelona, 1985, under the title: Trends in research on the teaching-learning of Biology.
- Visualavi (2016). How physics is related to biology. Recovered from: visualavi.com.
- Biology (2013). Fields in which biology is divided. Recovered from: biologiacecyt16.blogspot.com.
- Nahle, Nasif (2006). Fields of study of biology. Recovered from: biocab.org.
- Ludeña, Jimmy (s / f). Relationship between biological sciences and engineering. Recovered from: ucsp.edu.pe.
- Science only (s / f). Relationship between biology and Informatics. Recovered from: solocencia.com.
- Green education (s / f). Relationship of Biology to Other Sciences. Recovered from: greeneducationintl.com.