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 1 Lecture 1

Biology

What is the Meaning

of Life? X

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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Biology 1 Lecture 1

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
organism’s organization

1. Organization and Order

Schrödinger'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 Schrödinger, What is Life (1944)

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1. Organization and Order

Schrödinger'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

Schrödinger's paradox

… But life maintains an organization

How can living organisms maintain order despite the

second law of thermodynamics?

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

Where ΔS = 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 Coyote Fox Wolf Jackal

dog

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.
Creation of theories and
Suggest that lions are kept
behind close doors
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 can’t 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.

Needham’s set-up Spallanzani’s 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

 doesn’t 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 self-

replicating 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 Earth’s 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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