BIOLOGY - WHAT ONE NEEDS TO KNOW

Biology on this planet represents an astonishing experiment in carbon- based chemistry which, over billions of years, has generated billions of species adapted to countless major and minor fluctuations in ecolog ical circumstances. In one sense there is no way to generalize about b iology. While biological activities can all be ultimately explained by physical laws (like everything else in the universe), it is the emerg ent intensely particular properties of organisms that most interest us . This essay represents an attempt to describe some of the more promin ent patterns that emerge from the sea of biological particularities, p atterns that present many opportunities for religous reflection.