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Course organization: course procedures, expectations
- BIOLOGY and LIVING SYSTEMS:
- Biology
is the science of living systems
- Living systems exhibit these features:
- Metabolism
- Selective response (irritability)
- Homeostasis
- Growth and biosynthesis
- Reproduction
- Population structure
- Hereditary information
- Mutability
- Mechanism versus Vitalism
- Levels of organization
- Reductionism versus Compositionism (holism)
- Emergence of new phenomena at each new level
- Nothing in chemistry can explain why insects have six legs,
or why kangaroos live only in Australia.
- SCIENCE AND ITS METHODS:
- Science is
a method of investigation that proposes
testable statements (hypotheses)
and then subjects the statements to rigorous testing.
- No statement can be a hypothesis unless it is falsifiable.
- Methods used to test hypotheses may be naturalistic
or experimental or both.
Pasquale's idea
Danae's idea
- Scientific method:
- Facts are gathered.
- A problem is stated.
- A hypothesis is proposed. It must be falsifiable.
- The hypothesis is tested (with rigor and objectivity).
- A scientific theory includes one or more related hypotheses
that have been repeatedly tested and never falsified.
Most theories also contain explanations in terms of unseen,
underlying ("theoretical") phenomena such as atoms or forces or genes.
- Experimental testing: scientist controls as many variables
as possible, allowing only one to vary at a time.
Usually an experimental group is compared to a
control group.
- Naturalistic testing: used for phenomena that cannot be
experimentally controlled, as in astronomy, paleontology,
or biogeography.
Natural scientists are restricted to those experiments that
nature performs; they must often wait patiently for
the right conditions.
- CELLS AND TISSUES:
- Living organisms are composed of cells.
- Bateria have very simple (procaryotic) cells with no nucleus.
- Animals, plants, and fungi have more complex (eucaryotic)
cells with separate nucleus and cytoplasm.
- The nucleus in eucaryotic cells contains chromosomes
which are multiple and linear (like strangs of spaghetti).
- The cytoplasm contains many organelles, including
plasma membrane, endoplasmic reticulum, golgi apparatus, vesicles, vacuoles,
mitochondria, ribosomes, lysosomes, contractile proteins (cytoskeleton), etc.
Groups of similar cells are organized into tissues in multicellular animals and plants.
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