Biology 1

Lecture 1

Bio 1

Introduction to the
Study of Life
Michael C. Velarde, Ph.D.

Biology is the study of life

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Biology

What is the Meaning

of Life?

What is Life?
Only three simple words, and yet out of them spins a
universe of questions that are no less challenging.
What precisely is it that separates the animate from the
inanimate?
What are the basic ingredients of life?
Where did life first stir?
How did the first organisms evolve?
Is there life everywhere?
To what extent is life scattered across the cosmos?
If other kinds of creatures do exist on exoplanets, are
they as intelligent as we are, or even more so?
- J. Craig Venter, Life at the Speed of Light (2013)

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The Concept of Life

Life is a self-sustaining chemical system
capable of Darwinian evolution.
- Gerald Joyce (Scripps Research Institute)

The Concept of Life

Organized. Life is a particular set of processes that

result from the organization of matter

Complex. Life
resists a simple,
one-sentence
definition

Recognizable.
yet we can
recognize life by
what living things
do

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Manifestations and Characteristics of

Living Organisms

1. Organization and Order

Ability to maintain a complex organization

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1. Organization and Order

Physical characteristics of
life is manifested from an
organisms organization

1. Organization and Order

Schrdinger's paradox
How can the events in space and time
which take place within the spatial boundary
of a living organism be accounted for by
physics and chemistry?
- Erwin Schrdinger, What is Life (1944)

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1. Organization and Order

Schrdinger's paradox
The second law of thermodynamics states that in every real
process the sum of the entropies of all participating bodies is
increased.
Entropy = measure of disorder
All things become
disorderly

1. Organization and Order

Schrdinger's paradox
But life maintains an organization

How can living organisms maintain order despite the

second law of thermodynamics?

S universe = S living organism + S non-living organisms

Where S = change in entropy

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2. Growth and Development

Ability to mature and
increase in size (in
contrast to simply
accumulating in
matter)

3. Metabolism
Ability to use
energy and
transform it to
do work

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4. Homeostasis
Ability to maintain a stable internal
environment or steady-state
Maintain
Body
Temperature

Shiver

Sweat

4. Homeostasis

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5. Reproduction
Ability to produce offsprings

6. Response to Stimulus
Ability to respond to environmental stimulus (e.g.
irritability, movement)

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7. Variation, change, and evolution

Ability to change over time in
response to the environment

7. Variation, change, and evolution

African wild
dog

Coyote

Fox

Wolf

Jackal

Thousands to
millions of years
of natural selection

Ancestral canine

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Viruses are physical entities with some of the

characters of living organisms
obligate intracellular parasites
made up of nucleic acid enclosed in a protein coat
sometimes wrapped in a membranous envelope

Viroids are physical entities with some of the

characters of living organisms
plant pathogens composed of molecules of
naked circular RNA only several hundred
nucleotides long

Electron microscopic picture of potato

spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd)

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Prions are physical entities with some of the

characters of living organisms
infectious forms of protein that may
increase in number by converting related
proteins to more prions

Microscopic image of a
tissue sample from
human brain showing a
clump of infectious
prions

Scientific Method of
Studying Life

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Scientific Method of Reasoning

Deductive Reasoning
Examining individual cases by applying
accepted general principles.
Application of theories and
principles (Medical
Practitioners, Engineers)

Inductive Reasoning
Discovering general principles through
examination of specific cases.
Suggest that lions are kept
behind close doors

Creation of theories and

principles (Researchers)

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Creation of Theories and Principles

Rationale

Theories

Principles

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Theories vs. Principles

Theory - set of hypotheses that have been
thoroughly tested over time.
Usually challenged by other theories.

Principles - is a law or rule accepted by the

scientific community.
Usually not challenged.

Example of Testing Hypothesis

Observed that all living organisms are organized and
are capable of metabolism, homeostasis,
reproduction, growth and development, response to
stimuli, and evolution
Are viruses living organisms?
Viruses are NOT living organisms
Viruses are living organisms.
- Viruses are organized
- Viruses evolve
- Viruses do not typically
respond to stimuli and
maintain homeostasis and
metabolism
- Viruses cant reproduce by
itself
- Viruses do not grow / develop
by itself

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Limitations of Science
Scientific study is limited to area that can
be observed and measured
o cannot be used to address all questions
o bound by practical limits
- temporal and spatial considerations

Origin of Life
Using a scientific method of
reasoning
What came first, the chicken or the
egg?

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Theories on the origin of life

1. Spontaneous Generation Theory
2. Biogenesis
3. Intelligent Design
4. Biogeochemical Theories
5. Interplanetary or Cosmozoic Theory

1. Spontaneous Generation
living organisms could develop
spontaneously from nonliving matter
from the time of the Greeks until the 19th
century it was common knowledge that
life could arise from nonliving matter
Aristotle (384 322 BC) thought that
some of the simpler invertebrates could
arise by spontaneous generation

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1. Spontaneous Generation
In 1668, Francesco Redi made a simple
experiment to demonstrate that maggots
do not arise spontaneously from decaying
matter.
decaying meat

maggots

decaying meat

1. Spontaneous Generation
In 1745, John Needham, claimed that
microbes develop spontaneously from
nutrient fluids.

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1. Spontaneous Generation
In 1765, Lazzaro Spallanzani, showed
that nutrient fluids heated after being
sealed in flasks did not develop microbial
growth.

Needhams set-up

Spallanzanis set-up

1. Spontaneous Generation
In 1862, Louis
Pasteur did
experiments
which provided
the final
argument to
disprove the
theory

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Pasteur
conducted broth
experiments that
rejected the idea
of spontaneous
generation

Copyright 2002 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Benjamin Cummings

2. Biogenesis
proposed by Rudolf Virchow in the 1850s
living organisms whether simple or
complex can arise only from preexisting
living organisms
doesnt answer the question how life
began on earth

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3. Intelligent Design
states that life on earth was created by
some supernatural force or being
each species represented a separate act
of creation
God said, Let the land produce
vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees
on the land that bear fruit with seed in it,
according to their various kinds. And it
was so. Gen 1:11

3. Intelligent Design
God said, Let the water teem with living
creatures, and let birds fly above the earth
across the expanse of the sky. 21So God
created the great creatures of the sea and
every living and moving thing with which
the water teems, according to their kinds,
and every winged bird according to its
kind.
Gen 1:20-21

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3. Intelligent Design
based on faith
cannot be subjected to scientific inquiry or
be tested in any lab

4. Biogeochemical Theory
life may have evolved from inorganic matter
traces possible events of the formation of
biomolecules under primitive earth
conditions to the evolution of the cell and
various cell processes
most scientists favor the hypothesis that life
on Earth developed from nonliving materials
that became ordered into aggregates that
were capable of self-replication and
metabolism

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4. Biogeochemical
Theory
Four stages:
(1) the abiotic synthesis of
small organic molecules
(2) joining these small
molecules into polymers
(3) origin of selfreplicating molecules
(4) packaging of these
molecules into
protobionts/protocell

4. Biogeochemical Theory
In 1953, Stanley
Miller and Harold
Urey tested the
Oparin-Haldane
hypothesis by
creating, in the
laboratory, the
conditions that
had been postulated
for early Earth.
Copyright 2002 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Benjamin Cummings

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Living cells may have been preceded by

protobionts, aggregates of abiotically
produced molecules.

4. Biogeochemical Theory
First organisms came into being between 4.0 billion years ago,
when the Earths crust began to solidify, and 3.5 billion years
ago when stromatolites appear

Copyright 2002 Pearson

Education, Inc., publishing as
Benjamin Cummings

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major debates also concern where life evolved

- shallow water or moist sediments
- deep sea vents

Copyright 2002 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Benjamin Cummings

5. Interplanetary or Cosmozoic Theory

life originated on a distant planet
the most important reason for invoking an
extraterrestrial origin for life, probably in a
hydrothermal habitat, is that such an origin
provides a greater timespan for early
evolution than has been available on Earth
Panspermia is applied to the possible
dispersion of life throughout the galaxy
Directed panspermia describes the deliberate
seeding of life on Earth by intelligent beings

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5. Interplanetary or Cosmozoic Theory

If Earth was the cradle for life, the time
interval between its origin and the existence
of the last common community (LCC)
appears incomprehensibly short
In view of the apparent complexity of the
LCC, particularly in terms of biochemistry, it
would be reasonable to allow perhaps 4
gigayears for its evolution from the
primordial cell

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