Neriza Joy A.

Galicha NS 210

07-02389-09 Prof. Coronado

Study Enrichment (Session 1: Science and Scientific Method; Biology as Science)

 Based on your understanding, what is / are the limitations of science?

• I personally think that science has reached its limit in some ways. This is
of course, ecologically speaking. The pollution caused by too much
science, for the sake of science, has long affected lives. Now, more and
more animals are getting extinct, more and more people are getting sick.
If science is indeed a way of making life easier and more comprehensible
to humans, then we need to recheck the objectives of our studies. Because
as one part of the world reaps the benefits of the gifts from science, there
is another part wherein living things suffer because of it.

Of course, there are still a lot of questions left unanswered. But hasn’t
man experienced enough. We’ve flown in the skies already, we’ve walked
on the moon, and we’ve even found ways to control the weather. There
are still more to experience, yet a lot to lose as well. Science will never
reach its limit. It will continue to gain more knowledge, and with this
knowledge, more questions. Science is a never-ending cycle.

 In biology, the application of scientific method is necessary to arrive at

understanding living organisms. The vastness of the living world into many
different kinds of organisms delimits in studying all life forms thus, boundaries
that mark the different areas of investigation provide biology with its specific
disciplines. Enumerate and discuss at least ten (10) disciplines of biology that
allows investigations to a particular organism or specific aspects of various
organisms and their interactions with one another.

• Zoology is a branch of biology concerned with the study of animals. The

study ranges from the structure of organisms to the subcellular unit of life.
Zoologists view this branch of science as either an applied science or basic
science.

• Botany is a branch of biology concerned with plants. These plants range

from the smallest fungi to the giant trees there are. Botany is a wide field,
so botanists concentrate on one chosen field in this study. Some
 subdisciplines of botany are plant systematics which deals with the
classification and naming of plants, plant anatomy that deals with the
plants’ cellular and tissue structure, and palynology which deals with
pollen and spores.

• Genetics is a branch of biology concerned with the science of heredity,

genes and variations in living organisms. It explains how traits like eye
color and susceptibility to diseases run in families. Genetics has also been
used to in selective breeding.

• Pathology is a branch of biology concerned with the study and diagnosis

of diseases through samples of tissue, blood and other body fluids to help
determine a disease, its cause, and severity.

• Paleontology is a branch of biology concerned with prehistoric life. It is a

study of fossils that tells us about life forms in the past.

• Freshwater biology deals with the study of marine life in freshwater forms
such as lakes, ponds and rivers. Algae, macrophytes and fish from this
ecosystem are studied.

• Mammalogy is the study of mammals, their diversity, distribution and

their characteristics. It is subclassified into different orders, such as
primates, carnivores, rodents and whales.

• Ornithology is a branch of biology concerned with the study of birds.

Ornithologists study their migration, habitat and conservation.

• Virology is the study of viruses and other virus-like agents. Virologists

study their structure, classification and use them in research and therapy.

• Microbiology is the study of small things which are already invisible to

the naked eye.

 List at least five (5) people who made important contributions to biology before
the start of twentieth century and contemporary period, respectively. Discuss
their specific contribution.

• Walther Flemming – He was the founder of cytogenetics. He studied the

process of cell division and the distribution of it to the daughter nuclei,
and called it mitosis.

• Robert Charles Gallo – He is one of the founders of HIV (human

immunodeficiency syndrome).
• Hans Adolf Krebs – He is best known for his study of the urea cycle and
the citric acid cycle, which became known as the Krebs cycle – a sequence
of metabolic chemical reactions that produces energy in cells. This earned
him a Nobel Prize in 1953.

• Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov – He was a Russian microbiologist and one of his

great works was the pioneering of research of the immune system.

• Gregor Johann Mendel – He is often called the father of genetics. He is

famous for the study of inheritance traits in pea plants.