Abstract
Frontiers in Life Science, 2015 Vol. 8, No. 3, 209, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21553769.2015.1077596 Life science is the scientific study of living organisms. It faculties they get from it, essentially distinguish them from is, with physical science, one of the two branches of natu- other bodies of nature. They offer themselves, and in the ral science. As such, it covers many fields, whether they are various phenomena they present, the materials of a par- focused on a...
Frontiers in Life Science, 2015 Vol. 8, No. 3, 209, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21553769.2015.1077596 Life science is the scientific study of living organisms. It faculties they get from it, essentially distinguish them from is, with physical science, one of the two branches of natu- other bodies of nature. They offer themselves, and in the ral science. As such, it covers many fields, whether they are various phenomena they present, the materials of a par- focused on a specific type of life (animals, plants, microor- ticular science that is not yet established, that does not ganisms) or on a particular aspect common to many life even have a name [ ... ] and to which I give the name of forms (genetics, epigenetics, anatomy, metabolism ... ). Biology” (Lamarck, 1815). As any kind of science, it has a single goal: to improve Life science (sometimes named life sciences to recall knowledge. Of course, this knowledge can in turn help to its plurality) is paleontology as well as pathology, marine improve our lives, and in particular our health. But let’s biology as well as human biology, ecology as well as epi- make it clear that life science is not health science: it is demiology, botany as well as toxicology. It is indeed a much more than that. That’s why I’m usually a bit upset vast and eclectic field composed of many branches com- when I see, in almost every “life science” grant application monly delimited by the scale of observation (e.g. molec- I review, the description of some tentative medical out- ular vs cellular biology), the kinds of organisms studied comes to justify the project. Life science is worth by itself, (e.g. zoology vs botany), the methods used (biophysics vs and it doesn’t have to always cure diseases. But the con- bioinformatics), the time scale considered (developmen- fusion is usual, unfortunately even in the editorial world, tal biology vs evolutionary biology). So many frontiers as testified for instance from these lines extracted from the to explore ... presentation of a journal: “Life Sciences is an international journal publishing articles that emphasize the molecular, Christophe Lavelle cellular, and functional basis of therapy.” Editor-in-chief Formerly known as natural philosophy or natural his- tory, life science became “biology” (from the Greek bios, References “life” and -logia, “study of)” in the 1800’s (Ghilarov, 1998; Ghilarov, A. 1998. Lamarck and the prehistory of ecology. Stafleu, 1971). Listen to Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Internatl Microbiol 1:161–164. Monet, chevalier de Lamarck: “It is the singular and really Lamarck. 1815. Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres. admirable bodies I have just mentioned that were given Stafleu, FA. 1971. Lamarck: the birth of biology. Taxon, 20(4): the name of living bodies; and the life they have, and the 397–442. © 2015 Taylor & Francis
Frontiers in Life Science – Taylor & Francis
Published: Jul 3, 2015
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