1.1 Introduction to Biology

Question 1

What is reductionism?

Answer 1

To understand a complex concept by breaking down into small components

Question 2

What are emergent properties?

Answer 2

Properties that a complex system has it, that it’s smaller parts don’t have.

Question 3

What evidence supports the idea that viruses are living things? What evidence contradicts this idea?

Answer 3

• Viruses are not replicable, and living things have to be able to replicate. Viruses don’t have the important cells and organelles to replicate genes, and they need to acquire a host cell to replicate its own genes.
• Viruses do not respond to environmental changes. Viruses don’t have organelles like cells do therefore they are unable to change their internal environments to adapt to external environments.
• Not cellular

Question 4

What does it mean to say that “new properties emerge at successive levels of biological organization?”

Answer 4

• Atoms –> Molecule –> organelles–> cells

- The more complex level contains properties that the previous basic level doesn’t contain

Question 5

What are some advantages and disadvantages of a reductionist approach to studying biology?

Answer 5

• Advantages: Breaks down a component into smaller components, which allows scientists to create smaller controlled experiments
• Disadvantages: It does not involve components such as emergent properties, which is the overall big picture of what is happening. Only observable at higher levels of organization.

Question 6

What does it mean to say that “the cell is the basic structural and functional unit of life?”

Answer 6

• everything organism is made of cells.

Question 7

What are the properties that make something alive?

Answer 7

Order, energy processing, growth & development, evolutionary adaptation, response to the environment, regulation, reproduction

Question 8

Reductionism

Answer 8

Breaking down a complex body into component parts and study them to understand the complex body

Question 9

Levels of biological organization

Answer 9

Biosphere → ecosystem → communities → populations → organisms → organs → tissues → cells → organelles → molecules

Question 10

Talk about cells

Answer 10

• Cell is the basic structural and functional unit of life
• Has plasma membrane and DNA
• Has DNA as center genetic material