Skeptics Stack Exchange
Skeptics Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [biology]

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Use this tag for general biology questions, but also use more specific life science tags to accompany this one if applicable.

Biology

Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines. Among the most important topics are five unifying principles that can be said to be the fundamental axioms of modern biology:

  1. Cells are the basic unit of life
  2. New species and inherited traits are the product of evolution
  3. Genes are the basic unit of heredity
  4. An organism regulates its internal environment to maintain a stable and constant condition
  5. Living organisms consume and transform energy.

Disciplines

Subdisciplines of biology are recognized on the basis of the scale at which organisms are studied and the methods used to study them: biochemistry examines the rudimentary chemistry of life; molecular biology studies the complex interactions of systems of biological molecules; cellular biology examines the basic building block of all life, the cell; physiology examines the physical and chemical functions of the tissues, organs, and organ systems of an organism; and ecology examines how various organisms interact and associate with their environment.

A more comprehensive list is the following:

  • Anatomy
  • Arachnology
  • Astrobiology
  • Botany
  • Biochemistry
  • Biogeography
  • Bioinformatics
  • Biophysics
  • Cell biology
  • Cytology
  • Dendrology
  • Developmental biology
  • Ecology
  • Entomology
  • Ethology
  • Evolutionary biology
  • Embryology
  • Genetics / Genomics
  • Herpetology
  • Histology
  • Human biology / Anthropology / Primatology
  • Ichthyology
  • Limnology
  • Malacology
  • Mammalogy
  • Marine biology
  • Microbiology / Bacteriology
  • Molecular biology
  • Mycology / Lichenology
  • Nematology
  • Neurobiology / Neuroscience
  • Ornithology
  • Parasitology
  • Palaeontology
  • Phycology
  • Phylogenetics
  • Physiology
  • Plant pathology
  • Taxonomy
  • Virology
  • Zoology
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Is a human on a bike more efficient than a fish in water?

Long ago, an enthusiastic cyclist claimed to me that a human on a bike was more efficient than a fish in water. Is this true? I would guess that the relevant measure of efficiency would be something like mD/E, where m=body mass, D=distance traveled,…
user4216
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Is abiogenesis virtually impossible?

Dr Eugene Koonin published a paper in 2007, The cosmological model of eternal inflation and the transition from chance to biological evolution in the history of life in the journal Biology Direct. An appendix to the paper, titled Probabilities of…
Mark
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Are crocodiles more closely related to birds than lizards and snakes?

In this video Owl, The Best Pet Reptile? you can hear Clint say, Crocodiles are more closely related to birds than they are to lizards and snakes. Is this claim true?
Evan Carroll
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Could the COVID-19 mortality rate be way lower than we think, implying vastly more cases?

I was analyzing some of the data surrounding COVID-19, and was looking at the vastly different mortality rates (calculated as deaths / total cases * 100). While there are probably many factors influencing differing mortality rates (age mainly),…
robbieperry22
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Is vitamin B11 another name for folate/folic acid?

As the Wikipedia article for folate states, vitamin B9 is another name for folate/folic acid. There is no mention of vitamin B11 in the article: Folate, also known as vitamin B9 and folacin, is one of the B vitamins. Manufactured folic acid, which…
Snack Exchange
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Have any transitional fossils (missing links) been found?

When animals evolve, they go into transitional states, when they were still in the process of evolving and haven't reached its complete change. There are bound to be organisms in the transitional state that die and get fossilized. Are there any…
Thursagen
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Does this article make a valid claim that SARS-CoV-2 isolation hasn't been demonstrated yet?

This is the article: Lordchewy: "Exposing the Core Tenets of the Covid 1984 Regime, Part 2: Koch’s Postulates, Lack of Sars Cov 2 Isolation and of its Presence in Autopsy Reports", Medium, Jan 1, 2021 It claims that there is no evidence (i.e. a…
Gaston Lagaffe
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