Unifying Principles in Biology - A set of unifying generalizations guide biology, like all areas of study. These concepts, based on the characteristics of life, guide investigations and organize information.
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| Unifying Principles in Biology |
All of us, whether we are vitalists, mechanists, or something in between (that gray area in which many people find themselves), accept the characteristics of life that we listed earlier. But because biology is a science, it has organized the characteristics of life into unifying principles, or concepts, that serve as its major generalizations. This process is not a strange quirk of biologists. Generalizations are found in every subject you study because they organize the details of a subject area into logical divisions. Without generalizations, people might become lost in the details they "can't see the forest for the trees."
Many biologists state that biology consists of at least seven unifying concepts: unity and diversity, genetic continuity, homeostasis and regulation, the biological basis of behavior, the complementarity of structure and function, the interplay of the organism and the environment, and evolution. As you read through the subsequent chapters, you will see that these concepts are woven throughout this text, wherever specifics are discussed. I hope that the short discussions here will help you gain a better understanding of these concepts, and I urge you to refer to this chapter again from time to time, to refresh your awareness of biological principles. They will help you understand how the specifics and the generalizations join to create the entire discipline of biology.
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