Doing Biology

by Fred Singer, Joel B. Hagen, Douglas Allchin

Book Overview

Doing Biology is written to engage the students in problem solving through embedded questions and exercises with actual data, real problems, and alternative explanations to examine, criticize, or... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0673996387
• ISBN13: 9780673996381
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Benjamin-Cummings Publishing Company
• Length: 196 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A must book for good biology teachers.

This thin volume gives great historical perspectives on the problems of developing some of the major ideas in biology. For example when discussing beriberi the authors point out the problem of trying to overcome the current influence of Pasteur and Koch's postulates. Almost until Eijkman's death scientists were searching for a microorganism that lived on the polished rice. Grinjins research was to lead to the nutrient deficiency concept. The questions that accompany the text are thought provoking rather than recall. A very refreshing approach to questioning. For example. "Between 1885 and 1906, 17 different researchers claimed to have found the microorganism that caused beriberi. Other researchers, including Koch, had searched for the infectious agent and failed to find one. They concluded that beriberi was not bacterial at all. From the perspective of someone who thought that beriberi was infectious, suggest several reasons why Eijkman, Koch, and others might have failed. Was failure to find a pathogen definitive in this case? Where should the burden of proof lie here?"