The art in science:

So often is the dichotomy between the arts and sciences, that as organismal biologists we deconstruct life to fit into some preconceived paradigm.  It's at least construed as this by those solely into the arts: that by getting out of bed in the morning is to forego what was the dream.

The truth of the matter is that biology is never subtractive... always cumulative... by understanding the animal, it never becomes less than what it *is*... it's always more than the sum of its parts.  In short, not only are the individual organisms  themselves (puppy dogs, house plants, and even molluscs) beautiful, but they're but simple twigs on a huge evolutionary bush. In those big black eyes of the saiga antelope, there's hundreds of millions of years of history, nobility, interconnectivity that has provided the modern critters we adore. Thus, through biology, life doesn't cease to be beautiful, it becomes more beautiful as we understand what beauty truly means.