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Human biology is an interdisciplinary academic field of biology, biological anthropology, nutrition and medicine which focuses on humans; it is closely related to primate biology, and a number of other fields. The human biology major was founded in 1970 at Stanford University.
History
The first man to ever use the term human biology was Ernst Freiherr von Blomberg (°1821 - +1903). Born in Hamburg, he attended the Academisches Gymnasium where he studied Evangelic Theology and the University to study Biology. At the Fachschule of Lübeck he held the chair of Zoology from 1856 until his retirement in 1896. His writings, though obscured by theological prejudice, have some interest: in 1869 he publishes a work called “Die Verwandlung im Prinzipus: Thiere, Maenschen und Ihren Gottlosen Vereinen”. It is considered to be the first book on anthrozoology. In his course of 1891 "Beiträge zur Studien der Thierverwandlungen", he unintentionally coined the term Humanbiologie. Today, this term is used on an entirely different basis, but his use had the same roots of research, albeit distorted by religious motives.
He died in Lübeck in 1903.
Research
Human biology research encompasses:
- Genetic variation across human populations, present and past
- Biological variation related to climate and other elements of the natural environment
- Determinants, across populations, of risk for degenerative disease and infectious disease
- Human growth and development
- Biodemography
While undisputed boundaries do not exist, human biology is typically distinguished from conventional medical research by an enhanced focus on international, population-level perspectives on health, and on human evolution, adaptation, and population genetics rather than individual diagnosis.
See Also
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