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human biology

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interdisciplinary area of study

Wikidata facts

Subclass of
anthropology
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studied by
human science
topic's main category
Category:Human biology
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via Wikidata · CC0

~9 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Human biology is an interdisciplinary area of academic study that examines humans through the influences and interplay of many diverse fields such as genetics, evolution, physiology, anatomy, epidemiology, anthropology, ecology, nutrition, population genetics, and sociocultural influences. It is closely related to the biomedical sciences, biological anthropology and other biological fields tying in various aspects of human functionality. It wasn't until the 20th century when biogerontologist, Raymond Pearl, founder of the journal Human Biology, phrased the term "human biology" in a way to describe a separate subsection apart from biology.

It is also a portmanteau term that describes all biological aspects of the human body, typically using the human body as a type organism for Mammalia, and in that context it is the basis for many undergraduate University degrees and modules.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “human biology” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.