The Relevance of Sociology in Biological Studies

   

While some people call the two discipline as a versus like Biology versus Sociology just because they differ in research methods, actually, these two fields can work together. Biology by definition deals with the natural processes of all organisms and how they move or adopt to survive and how they evolve to fit in to the environment. Sociology, on the other hand, study only one specie and that is humans and how they interact with each other to survive in an environment.    

With the similarity of the study of both Sciences about the concepts survival and adaptation, one can probably say that these two Sciences can be partners. To answer the question of why Sociology is relevant to the field of Biology, Sociology claims that the interaction of the people with each other is a form of coping mechanism to survive and to get an advantage in getting the needs from a group. "No man is an island," others would say. One cannot survive or live alone.    

He or she needs companions to which he or she shares the same interests with and to avoid any danger when being with a group because he or she can be defended by the other people in a group. Otherwise, when these interests are conflicting against each other, conflicts would probably occur. Biology genuinely accepts that idea. Biologists do apply the idea to the lives of other organisms.    

For instance, a typical cat would always seek to find other cats to avoid the danger of being eaten by its predator and also to find it easier to collect food from the environment. Eventually, it would have a mating with the other similar specie. It is a natural process of all the organisms to multiply. With that idea, the cat is having a socialization with the other similar species. However, conflict would still occur just like in humans. Similar to the human beings, they compete to the other groups of cats in seeking for food.      

Sociobiology 

Sociobiology deals with the study of the behaviors of animals. Unlike Biology alone, the social aspect of such behaviors is the target of the study of sociobiology. In a sociological sense, behavior is social. Biologically speaking, the social behavior of a specie is a product of an evolution. Basically, it touches the fields of anthropology in the sense that the environmental factor of the change is accepted as the fact, zoology because of the study of animals, and ecology.    

The discipline sees the behavior as the product of natural selection. Meaning to say, it is involuntary. Animals tend to find their own groups naturally and multiply. It is their normal behavior that they want to pass their genes to the next generation. This characteristics is very similar to human being with a few exemption since humans possess self consciousness that the animals do not have. But the point is that, they naturally multiply in numbers. 

     

The Concept of Socialization 

As an elaboration of the aforementioned topic, socialization is practiced not only human beings but also by the animals. The feeling of belongingness is a feeling that all the species do possess. Biology is enlightened with this sociological claim. It is similar to what is called society by the humans and factors of this is still similar to that of the humans. The concept of culture by the humans is also the same with the habitual behaviors of animals in gathering food and taking care of the young animals.    

Conflicts are also seen just what humans experience. Animals may have a predator-prey relationship, but they do fight for the accumulation of food. In the case of the ants, politics of humans can be seen when they store food collectively for the preparation of an upcoming wet season and these foods are allocated equally. Politics there works to avoid the conflicts among ants and work in a collective way instead.      

Social Behavior 

Another contribution of Sociology to the Biology is the paying of attention to studying social behavior. In the classical Biology, biologists only dealt with life processes of any living organism including patterns of behavior distinct to them. The social aspect of behavior was not then realized. Sociology claims that the social part of the behavior of animals is also a natural process that any animal tends to fulfill by examining the commonality of the patterns of behavior signifying the natural process of being social. Indeed, it is necessary for any of the animal's survival.      

Solidarity 

The term is very common to human beings as it is defined as a sense of unity between or among people who share the same goals, objectives, and interests. In the lives of animals, this feeling is also existent. For instance in the lives of elephants in a wild forest or jungle that they travel together to find a comfortable and resourceful place. Also in times when an animal dies, any of its similar animal usually show sorrow for it. Sociology escalates this claim that animals can always recognize their kind and tend to work together for a common goal -- to find shelter and food for the survival.

    

However, as what is always stressed out earlier, just like humans, there are animals who do not do the thing. They remain competitive to their kind, and Sociology highly accepts this possibility for the biological researches. And of course, almost all animals naturally become competitive to the other kind. Such that lions would always think tiger as their enemy in a food and territorial competition, but there are also animals who practice solidarity towards the other kind. Meaning to say, cats and dogs can be friends. These are the possibilities very existent to humans that are applied in Biology in studying animals' behavior.   

These are just the sociological influences to the world of Biology, and it is kind of interesting to know better about it. The world is complex, and it cannot be understood only in terms of a single approach. A lot of discipline try to work collectively for a common goal and it is to understand the world from its complexity. As a product of such effort, the intellectual integration between Sociology and Biology is just one of the steps to better improve the current condition of the studies. 

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