(Part 3) Best biological science books according to redditors
We found 4,941 Reddit comments discussing the best biological science books. We ranked the 2,011 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 41-60. You can also go back to the previous section.
They are amazing animals if you consider they're about the size of a grain of rice when they're born, get no parental instruction, have to learn everything themselves and grow into such intelligent creatures while having very short lifespans (the longest lived only live 3 to 5 years).
And if you want to read more about them, I highly recommend "The Soul of the Octopus"
https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Octopus-Surprising-Exploration-Consciousness/dp/1451697724
That's actually a part of an entire book about Octopuses! It's called The Soul of an Octopus ! It's a great read and goes into even more depth about octopus intelligence!
Octopuses are some of the coolest animals in the world, I encourage everyone to learn more about them. You won't regret it!
Soul of an Octopus is a great read for those who are curious about the intelligence of these amazing creatures.
OH YEAH. He is one of my favorite authors, ever. The Diversity of Life won him a Pulitzer if I recall correctly, and is a must read for anyone who loves non-fiction and biology. Consilience is a heady read and well worth the time. The Future of Life is a call to arms in defense of the environment, and as well written and straightfoward as anyone could ask. Kind of like An Inconvenient Truth, if it was written by one of the most brilliant and silver-tongued biologists of our time instead of the inventor of the internet.
This happens every year, often several times per year. The ants that fly are both males and virgin queens, and this is called a mating flight. Ants are really cool in that they are able to time the flight across different colonies and huge distances, so all the colonies send out their males and queens at the same time.
In about 24 hours all the males will have died, and the queens will land and lose their wings. They now have a few months to get the basics of a colony going before winter begins, and naturally only a small percentage will be successful.
Source: I've read this book.
EDIT: It's also called a Nuptial flight, and here is a Wikipedia article about it.
> The flight requires clear weather since rain is disruptive for flying insects. Different colonies of the same species often use environmental cues to synchronize the release of males and queens so that they can mate with individuals from other nests, thus avoiding inbreeding. The actual "take off" from the parent colony is also often synchronized so that predators cannot eat the ants one by one.
I'm not a doctor but a medical writer who has been obsessed with medicine since I was a kid. Hmm, let me throw out some stuff...
YouTube is a treasure trove. Hank Green's SciShow is an excellent place to start. He's the nerdy, passionate science teacher we all deserve to have.
ZDoggMd makes video parodies that are also suitable for kids. He rewords pop songs with a medical education message.
Medicalstudent.com is a collection of free medical textbooks. Still one of the best-curated lists and non-commercial.
Textbooks can't be beat for learning the fundamentals. Most texts aren't appropriate for children, but the "Made Ridiculously Simple" series is an exception. These books are for med students and it break key concepts down with cartoony illustrations. Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple is the best, IMO.
Netter's anatomy flashcards are awesome. They aren't cheap, but I bet your daughter would love them.
This should satisfy your daughter for a week or two. ;)
If you like octopuses, check out the book The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery. It's a fun read.
I am not at all an expert on this topic, but I am reading Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors right now, a fascinating book on the history of humans that tends to favor genetic explanations above the more social anthropological explanations.
This book argues that race is a very real thing, but it has little to do with looks (which is how people traditionally separate out race, e.g. black, white). It argues there are clean genetic clusters (based on a small number of genes) that can be referred to as "human races". You can say this person is ~x% this cluster, y% that, etc. You are right that genetically individuals are very diverse, but some genes dominate in some races. Just a few 100 years can create some major genetic changes that are selected for in that group. This is a fact supported by many examples, like the intelligence of Ashkenazi Jews, or the long distance running abilities of East Africans.
It is possible to look at someone's genetic signature and map them to a cluster pretty cleanly. Whether you want to call this "race" or not is debatable given the terrible history of race relations, but that is just a semantic debate. The politically correct stance that there is no difference between human populations hides the truth for social reasons.
[Physics PhD, theoretical soft condensed matter physics/active matter]
In short, I think interdisciplinary research is always a good thing. Both sides benefit from different ways of thinking and different methodology, which leads to an even greater understanding.
Long version:
Biology (unlike physics or mathematics) contains an “-ology” suffix, which means it is the study of something, specifically life. Whereas physics is more of way understanding and distilling nature through universal principles, and mathematics is a tool or a language to develop those principles and more. Physics/mathematics and biology meet most commonly when biologists borrow physics/math tools to understand new biology. For example, the use of optical tweezers (part of this year’s physics Nobel prize) to accurately control proteins in the subcellular environment in vivo is a vital tool in understanding vesicle transport (if I’m not mistaken). Or in general, the use of more mathematics to make biology more quantitative may help make biology experiments more reproducible.
A second way biology and physics meet is when physicist use biology as a system to understand new physics of things out of equilibrium (or active), complex/adaptive networks, or living. For example, William Bialek and Jeremy England develop general theories for living systems. Mathematics is used as a language to think about these theories. One of my favorite analogies is, “if mathematics is the language of nature, physics is the poetry”.
As for mathematics and biology without physics, ecology is a field that has been a fruitful endeavor for both math and biology.
Lastly, I’d like to add that biology is not being replaced by physics/math. The goals of the fields are inherently different. But where there’s some overlap in these goals, teams collaborate and even more can be achieved/understood than separately. This is beautiful science.
P.S. Two great textbooks where biology, math and physics (and some chemistry) meet are “Biophysics” and “Physical Biology of the Cell”.
For people interested in the genetic origins of our sexual behaviors, read in that order:
EDIT: anyone with other suggestions on the topic?
If you know your theory on mating systems, you know that animal sexual pairing comes in basically two different flavors.
In the right corner we have polygamy, characterized by strong male competition (violence) for exclusive sexual access to all females of the group, little parental investment, strong sexual dimorphism (e.g. elephant seals, gorilla, lions, etc.). Only the strongest get to mate with all females. There are no betas, just one alpha per group (or a few, in special cases such as lions). Other males don't provide. They just masturbate if they can, or die challenging the alpha or trying to poach one of his females.
In the left corner we have monogamy, characterized by strong parental investment, little sexual dimorphism, high female infidelity (e.g. bonobos, most birds). Estrus is hidden to facilitate female infidelity. There are no alphas, only betas, only providers. Females are out trying to cheat on their partner with males with higher-quality genetic material (but these are not alpha males in the previous polygamous sense) while their beta partner desperately display strong mate-guarding behavior.
Humans are in between, we display traits of both types. We probably started as a polygamous species slowly shifting into monogamy. In this context, what sexual strategy do we choose in order to reproduce and pass on our genetic material?
My view is that there are no set Alpha men and Beta men. They are just sets of behavior traits. I believe every man has the capacity to be Alpha or Beta, depending on his environment. I see it as two different "psychological modules". And which one is activated depends on the environment, which is: sexual options.
A man can have many sexual options thanks to his good genetics, being born tall, strong and handsome. Or born wealthy or high value in a hierarchical society (e.g. the chief's son). Or a man might have early luck with women in his life, building abundance mentality as default in his teenage psyche. Preselection provides a feedback loop that maintain constant sexual options. Or maybe he has the luck of being surrounded by mostly women, due to a war decimating the male population. The high sexual options activates the "alpha module" in his psychology: high self-esteem, strong will to compete, refusal to commit, etc.
Everyone else who has little sexual options gets the "beta module" activated. In order to reproduce, he must find ONE female and propose the deal of sacrificing his time and resources to her and her only in exchange for her bearing HIS progeny. Heavy insecurity, mate-guarding behavior, ONE-itis come with the beta module. Or to put a more positive spin on it: the desire to be loved, dedication, chivalry, the desire to be a father and attend to your kids.
I think the Alpha and Beta modules and their activation predate feminism. Cultures prior to the '50s show the pussywhipped man, the cuckolded man, the poet, the white knight, the dedicated husband and father.. and alternatively the king and his courtesans, the harems, Don Juan, the Marquis de Sade... Just as hypergamy is a feature of all human females, the alpha/beta dual strategy is a feature of all human males: selecting the best strategy to pass on your genes given the environment (sexual options). If the environment changes, the active psychological module switches. e.g. the man who wins lottery and suddenly gets the attention of women is likely to all of a sudden lose his ONE-itis for his nagging wife, rationalize why all of a sudden he doesn't feel like "doing the right thing" is actually the right thing to do, despite having defended his opinion for so long, etc. All in all, our psychology automatically activates the most appropriate module for passing on our genes, given the environmental conditions. As OP suggests, beta strategy is adopted by low SMV males but this is simply because they don't have the options to do otherwise.
No module is intrinsically good or bad. On a genetic level of course, alpha strategy makes more sense as it will get more copies of your genes in the next generation, but only IF your offspring can survive to adulthood (i.e. personal wealth, or wealthy society). Beta strategy is probably a good bet otherwise such as in times of famine, crisis. On a personal happiness level however, there is no contest. Both strategies have downsides for sure. Alpha strategy implies the lack of nurturing, lack of spouse support, constant competition with other men, constant need to maintain SMV... But beta strategy implies possible cuckoldry, possible abandonment and the loss of your investment. Even if successful, mate guarding means constant anxiety. All in all a pit of sadness that makes it the short end of the stick. And then add to it the current context (unchecked hypergamy, modern divorce laws). Strive to switch your environment to be alpha.
Oh yeah, there's a ton of stuff out there about natural selection (and evolutionary theory more broadly). You might want to start with the SEP entry on natural selection, which will give you a feel for some of the issues. Beyond that, here are a few things I'd recommend reading:
That should give you some pretty solid places to start reading. I've read all of those things, and I'm pretty comfortable recommending each of them as worth your time.
Read this thing cover to cover, do all your assignments, watch Crash Course Bio and Bozeman Science on YouTube, and good things will come your way.
https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-Biology-School-Pearson-Education/dp/0133458148
I love this book.
Random selection of some of my favorites to help you expand your horizons:
The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan is a great introduction to scientific skepticism.
Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris is a succinct refutation of Christianity as it's generally practiced in the US employing crystal-clear logic.
Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor by Anthony Everitt is the best biography of one of the most interesting men in history, in my personal opinion.
Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski is a jaw-dropping book on history, journalism, travel, contemporary events, philosophy.
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson is a great tome about... everything. Physics, history, biology, art... Plus he's funny as hell. (Check out his In a Sunburned Country for a side-splitting account of his trip to Australia).
The Annotated Mona Lisa by Carol Strickland is a thorough primer on art history. Get it before going to any major museum (Met, Louvre, Tate Modern, Prado, etc).
Not the Impossible Faith by Richard Carrier is a detailed refutation of the whole 'Christianity could not have survived the early years if it weren't for god's providence' argument.
Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman are six of the easier chapters from his '63 Lectures on Physics delivered at CalTech. If you like it and really want to be mind-fucked with science, his QED is a great book on quantum electrodynamics direct from the master.
Lucy's Legacy by Donald Johanson will give you a really great understanding of our family history (homo, australopithecus, ardipithecus, etc). Equally good are Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors by Nicholas Wade and Mapping Human History by Steve Olson, though I personally enjoyed Before the Dawn slightly more.
Memory and the Mediterranean by Fernand Braudel gives you context for all the Bible stories by detailing contemporaneous events from the Levant, Italy, Greece, Egypt, etc.
After the Prophet by Lesley Hazleton is an awesome read if you don't know much about Islam and its early history.
Happy reading!
edit: Also, check out the Reasonable Doubts podcast.
its not christians we bash ... its their ideas ... the fact that you think you diserve respect for your relgion is a joke as it is hate filled and does nothing but promote hate .... its funny i can not go to a church with out them saying life with out god is not worth living ( sooo rude to make jundgements on other peoples worth )
its not the people we bash on its their IDEAS and IGNORANCE .... its the fact the christian relgion is trying to drag us into the dark ages agian .. we have people who want to say that women do not have the right to save their own life ( abortion ) it is the fact that they are tying to force the teaching of superstition in schools ... ( ID )
xxxx
i also find it funny that christians are the ones behind the idea that gays are not people and do not deserve the rights other people have to live life the way they choose ... but its the bigoted Christians they say hate the SIN not the sinner but they do not understand that being gay for some people is not a choice but biologically driven if you do not think there is no room for people in our society because they don't make babies... ( IMHO that's fighting evolution and not seeing the worth they bring to our society not to mention its not very nice to treat fellow human beings like this ... but the Christians are not big into empathy for their fellow man i guess ... how big of them ... )
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sooo when you talking of bashing please look at what current Christians are doing to nonbelievers and unlucky believers that get caught up into your religion ...
so to recap ... its less offensive to say " Love The Religious but Hate the RELIGION " i know i heard something like this before but the thing i heard is that its ok to hate gays unless they change who they are ... does not sound very nice ... fuck your religion .... but not you ...
ps lets not forget ... where Christians come from as moral leaders when it comes to bashing non believers ... stick and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me unless its the word of your god and then i am sure you fell ok hurting people in the name of your god and if you don't your religion did and you share in the blood your religion has split ... ....
If you find that interesting I highly recommend reading the book Sync by Brian Strogatz. Nature is full of this stuff, from sleep cycles to quantum effects to the behaviour of fireflies.
I've always liked "At the Bench" by Kathy Barker.
I've got one of these, and it's pretty good: Plants of Coastal British Columbia
A good summary of the origins of Australian Aborigines, as well as much of early human history, can be found in Before the Dawn by Nicholas Wade.
Try this one.
Check out a book called The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean, by Susan Casey. She goes into quite a bit of detail about what happened to the München.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0767928857/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_c_api_i_yoswCbZQ8GKZM
This is highly dependent on the area of neuro you're in. It might not vary much from the typical cell/molec biology lab, might involve skills heavy in engineering, animal handling skills, programming skills, etc. Even across labs within an area there will variation in the "set" of core techniques (and thus skills) required.
For a general introduction to working in a lab, you should check out "at the bench". This will skew towards general biology lab skills, but is a great start. It also gives very important tips on peacefully co-existing with your lab mates: https://www.amazon.com/At-Bench-Laboratory-Navigator-Updated/dp/0879697083
Yeah it’s heartbreaking, they breed then begin to senesce, some hang on for weeks others months.
Ive spent a lot of time with several GPOs-it’s incredibly difficult to not establish a relationship with an animal as intelligent, expressive, inquisitive, individualistic, and dynamic as an octopus. This is an animal with a vast repertoire of skills and emotions, from placid “loving” inquiries with their suckers to fickle attempts to bite their keepers, playful water-jets during an interaction to targeted streams of water aimed at a stranger. Working with these animals gives you a true appreciation for senescence and animal cognition/perception.
Anthropomorphizing in this industry’s often a “four letter word” used to diminish the cognitive faculties of non-humans when we see a reflection of ourselves. GPOs taught me this may be true but in the sense that I️ was interacting with an organism on an equal, greater, or entirely alien plane of consciousness. We shouldn’t diminish their experience as less than that of our own.
My good friend wrote a book about octopus with a focus on animal consciousness and the bonds formed working with these animals. Definitely worth checking out if you’re interested in learning more Link here
That wave is absurd... I like to imagine Laird riding much bigger waves than these and just not putting it out there. After reading The Wave I see these and wonder what he's up to, they talk a lot about 'Egypt' which is supposed to be enormous and insane. Anyway, if you want to know what his point of view on waves like this is, check that book out. It's a good quick read.
I highly recommend you these books: labmaths and at the bench
Sounds like you may want to check out the Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior.
It really depends.
Primary care docs like myself don't use much actual true biology, physiology, chemistry, physics, organic chemistry, pharmacology on a day-to-day basis. Like most jobs, as you get more experienced, your knowledge also gets more focused on aspects you need to learn and use repeatedly and you forget most of the inane and trivial things that you may have learned.
Although I might have seen a case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever today, that I've never seen before. But I was thinking the last time I really thought about Rickettsial disease was while reading [this] (https://www.amazon.ca/Clinical-Microbiology-Made-Ridiculously-Simple/dp/1935660152) study guide in undergrad. I was actually picturing the drawing from that guide today about the RMSF guy with the mustache and spots all over.
If you've not read anything else by him, I say that is a great start. I think his writings on biology are way better than his writings on religion.
He's very "tangential" though, so I sometimes feel like I'm trying to keep up with his train of thought.
When you're done, assuming you haven't read it already, you should read The Extended Phenotype. I believe it's his greatest book.
Happy reading!
> Not only are there many ERVs shared among primates, but they are shared in hierarchical subsets of the whole. Each set falls within another set, giving an unbroken line of inheritance for every species (Kurdyukov et al., 2001; Lebedev et al., 2000). This pattern is called a nested hierarchy. These patterns further corroborate that the many species of primates share common ancestry, and necessitate a specific sequence of divergence from one ancestral species to the next. They are wholly inexplicable by the model of uncommon ancestry.
For those curious, this is a Pogonomyrmex Badius (Florida Harvester Ant, http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/urban/ants/harvester_ant.htm http://www.antweb.org/description.do?genus=pogonomyrmex&species=badius&rank=species&project=allantwebants) ant colony. The photograph is by Charles F. Badland. Walter Tschinkel made the cast and is standing next to it in the picture. You can find more pictures like these, and lots of awesome information about ants in the book The Superorganism by Bert Holldobler and Edward O. Wilson.
http://www.amazon.com/Superorganism-Beauty-Elegance-Strangeness-Societies/dp/0393067041/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417722107&sr=1-1&keywords=the+superorganism
Get him one of the small rock id books with lots of pictures (like http://www.amazon.com/National-Audubon-Society-American-Minerals/dp/0394502698/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368484350&sr=1-1&keywords=rock+guide). Even if he's barely reading, he can match pictures to the rocks and you can read it with him.
And yeah, don't throw away his rocks. If space in the house becomes an issue, help him create a rock garden in the yard and mark off an area for him.
My parents have cute pictures of me when I was really little walking holding up pants with pockets bulging and so full of rocks that they wouldn't stay up. If he wants to bring too many home, you can make a rule about only the top 3 or 5 or give him a specific box or bag and he can't bring home more than will fit in that item from each trip.
When you travel, look online for cool rock spots or neat geology opportunities where you're going to tie in his hobby with family events. It will make him feel special and feed his love.
Very cool of you to work to support your kid's inquisitive nature.
A good introductory text on the statistical mechanics of biopolymers (including a number of models of DNA) is Ken Dill's Molecular Driving Forces. Much of it is undergraduate level, and it will necessarily include simple models that are primarily pedagogical, but they are nonetheless incredibly useful tools for connecting to the literature in a deeper way. For example, two state models can deliver some surprising results despite how simple they are -- such models show up in the literature in the form of elastic network models (ENMs), where two well-defined configurations are used to construct harmonic approximations to the state space. These can then be used to model transitions between states across the potential surface. ENMs aren't as relevant to DNA, as far as I know (I work on a membrane transporter at the moment), but is representative of the simpler tools used in the field.
Additionally, Rob Phillips has some very useful texts (that emphasize an intuition of the length- and time-scales involved): Physical Biology of the Cell and Cell Biology by the Numbers.
Hope that helps!
If you want a textbook, I would recommend one of two books:
Biological Physics by Philip Nelson is a pretty good starting point. The author tried to write a book that is both as accessible as possible and introduces only the most important topics. He covers a lot of interesting, but important material like random walks and molecular machines assuming that the reader does not have a very strong background in either biology or physics. The advantage to this is that he covers only the most important ideas, and in a way that someone with only introductory physics and calculus can understand. The downside is that some of the results are not general, focussing on one dimension instead of three for example, and for the experienced his introductions can be a little redundant. Nelson tries to get around this by having an optional “Track 2” that goes into greater detail and looks are tough problems and original papers.
Physical Biology of the Cell by Rob Phillips is also very good. This book is much longer than the Nelson book and goes into greater detail on a lot of the material. Where Nelson was trying to include only the most important topics, Phillips tries to include everything. The upside is that this book covers more examples and often includes more general results, but it makes for a long read at over a thousand pages. A fairly strong background in some higher level physics, like knowing how to set up and use a partition function, makes reading this book much easier.
I personally like the Phillips book more than the Nelson book, but it depends on where you are at in your major. If you have just taken introductory physics, the Nelson book might be better, if you have taken some higher level courses (especially thermodynamics/statistical mechanics) the Phillips book would be better. Either way I recommend checking them out from the library before you buy them.
Edit: How could I forget this little gem: Can a Biologist Fix a Radio? by Lazebnik. If you want a nice introduction into the philosophy of biophysics, I strongly recommend this well written article.
[The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior] (https://www.amazon.com/Sibley-Guide-Bird-Life-Behavior/dp/1400043867)
I am not sure how this has not been recommended yet! It is one of the best IMO.
Nope, none of those for my location, but there is this fantastic book which is the bible of most foragers in my neighbourhood. And this one.
Back in the old days, most people were hairy hominids, but some had patterns of baldness across their bodies. This was novel, attractive. They got to be fucked more often. That baldness gene got past on. And now men want to fuck things like Kate Upton, Beyonce, or a Fleshlight.
See, Before the Dawn
>methodically state the case for why creation is most likely and/or why evolution is unlikely.
You will find lots and lots of the latter. Very little of the former.
>I'd also be happy to read GOOD anti-creation books as well, provided they meet the above criterion of not being mocking.
Those would just be science books based on the academic literature, wouldn't they?
Here is my reading list form the past few months. These would be pro-evolution (a.k.a science). Creationism is mentioned in a few of them, but almost in passing because Creationism is simply not a factor in legitimate scientific research, so it gets pretty much no consideration.
Knock yourself out. ;)
Meat Eater by Steven Rinella is a wonderful book about his life as a hunter.
American Buffalo is another book from Rinella that not only tells of the hunt but contains a great history lesson.
A specific regional guide will usually be more meaningful to own than a general guide that covers all of North America.
That been said, I personally own and recommend the National Wildlife Federation's Field Guide to Insects and Spiders of North America. It's packed with pictures and organizes everything by order, and then by family (to really understand the groupings, you should familiarize yourself with taxonomic rank). For each order, it includes some basic anatomical diagrams to help you distinguish one order from another.
It's also printed on some pretty durable gloss paper and has a water resistant cover, as icing on the cake.
I have not compared it to the Kaufman guide, since my book store does not carry it.
Comparing it to the Audubon version, I find that the NWF's guide is better for beginners due to having a picture for everything it lists. I also noticed the toner was coming off on my hand on the audubon guide while I was flipping through it in the book store.
I scarcely use it now because I've gotten good enough at identifying orders and a good number of families to use bugguide to narrow things down, but it was nice to take along on a camping trip.
Note that if you want to learn how to differentiate families of beetles or butterflies or spiders based on their anatomical traits, you'll probably need a specific field guide pertaining only to that bug. I can't recommend any, since I don't own any. Or use online references - again, bugguide is pretty good for a lot of things, but I have learned a ton from just googling for the information on a specific taxon.
I haven't heard of any good insect field guide apps, but this is my favorite field guide:
National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Insects and Spiders & Related Species of North America https://www.amazon.com/dp/1402741537/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_kbj-tb1X4SW2Z
This is a close second:
Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America (Kaufman Field Guides) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0618153101/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_zfj-tb1ZVGNYF
Edit: it's probably worth getting both for those prices.
https://www.amazon.com/At-Bench-Laboratory-Navigator-Updated/dp/0879697083
Is a really good start - it also covers more "big picture" items about working in a lab, like etiquette and safety.
Overviews of the evidence:
The greatest show on earth
Why evolution is true
Books on advanced evolution:
The selfish gene
The extended phenotype
Climbing mount improbable
The ancestors tale
It is hard to find a better author than Dawkins to explain evolutionary biology. Many other popular science books either don't cover the details or don't focus entirely on evolution.
I will hit one point though.
>I have a hard time simply jumping from natural adaption or mutation or addition of information to the genome, etc. to an entirely different species.
For this you should understand two very important concepts in evolution. The first is a reproductive barrier. Basically as two populations of a species remain apart from each other (in technical terms we say there is no gene flow between them) then repoductive barriers becomes established. These range in type. There are behavioral barriers, such as certain species of insects mating at different times of the day from other closely related species. If they both still mated at the same time then they could still produce viable offspring. Other examples of behavior would be songs in birds (females will only mate with males who sing a certain way). There can also be physical barriers to reproduction, such as producing infertile offspring (like a donkey and a horse do) or simply being unable to mate (many bees or flies have different arrangements of their genitalia which makes it difficult or impossible to mate with other closely related species. Once these barriers exist then the two populations are considered two different species. These two species can now further diverge from each other.
The second thing to understand is the locking in of important genes. Evolution does not really take place on the level of the individual as most first year biology courses will tell you. It makes far more sense to say that it takes place on the level of the gene (read the selfish gene and the extended phenotype for a better overview of this). Any given gene can have a mutation that is either positive, negative, of neutral. Most mutations are neutral or negative. Let's say that a certain gene has a 85% chance of having a negative mutation, a 10% chance of a neutral mutation, and a 5% chance of a positive mutation. This gene is doing pretty good, from it's viewpoint it has an 85% chance of 'surviving' a mutation. What is meant by this is that even though one of it's offspring may have mutated there is an 85% chance that the mutated gene will perform worse than it and so the mutation will not replace it in the gene pool. If a neutral mutation happens then this is trouble for the original gene, because now there is a gene that does just as good a job as it in the gene pool. At this point random fluctuations of gene frequency called genetic drift take over the fate of the mutated gene (I won't go into genetic drift here but you should understand it if you want to understand evolution).
The last type of mutation, a positive mutation is what natural selection acts on. This type of mutation would also change the negative/neutral/positive mutation possibilities. so the newly positively mutated gene might have frequencies of 90/7/3 Already it has much better odds than the original gene. OK, one more point before I explain how this all ties together. Once a gene has reached the 100/0/0 point it does not mean that gene wins forever, there can still be mutations in other genes that affect it. A gene making an ant really good at flying doesn't matter much when the ant lives in tunnels and bites off its own wings, so that gene now has altered percentages in ants. It is this very complex web that makes up the very basics of mutations and how they impact evolution (if you are wondering how common mutations are I believe they happen about once every billion base pairs, so every human at conception has on average 4 mutations that were not present in either parent)
This all ties back together by understanding that body plan genes (called hox genes) lock species into their current body plans, by reducing the number of possible positive or neutral mutations they become crucial to the organisms survival. As evolutionary time progresses these genes become more and more locked in, meaning that the body plans of individuals become more and more locked in. So it is no wonder that coming in so late to the game as we are we see such diversity in life and we never see large scale form mutations. Those type of mutations became less likely as the hox genes became locked in their comfy spots on the unimpeachable end of the mutation probability pool. That is why it is hard to imagine one species evolving into another, and why a creationist saying that they will believe evolution when a monkey gives birth to a human is so wrong.
Hopefully I explained that well, it is kind of a dense subject and I had to skip some things I would rather have covered.
You're thinking of the Extended Phenotype, the topic of one of Richard Dawkins' books.
The construction of wetlands via beaver dams and peat bogs would be two examples of organisms (beavers and peat moss) dramatically affecting their own ecosystem.
Some more info here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090119081333.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2658563/
Here's mine
To understand life, I'd highly recommend this textbook that we used at university http://www.amazon.com/Campbell-Biology-Edition-Jane-Reece/dp/0321558235/ That covers cell biology and basic biology, you'll understand how the cells in your body work, how nutrition works, how medicine works, how viruses work, where biotech is today, and every page will confront you with what we "don't yet" understand too with neat little excerpts of current science every chapter. It'll give you the foundation to start seeing how life is nothing special and just machinery (maybe you should do some basic chemistry/biology stuff on KhanAcademy first though to fully appreciate what you'll read).
For math I'd recommend doing KhanAcademy aswell https://www.khanacademy.org/ and maybe a good Algebra workbook like http://www.amazon.com/The-Humongous-Book-Algebra-Problems/dp/1592577229/ and after you're comfortable with Algebra/Trig then go for calc, I like this book http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Ron-Larson/dp/0547167024/ Don't forget the 2 workbooks so you can dig yourself out when you get stuck http://www.amazon.com/Student-Solutions-Chapters-Edwards-Calculus/dp/0547213093/ http://www.amazon.com/Student-Solutions-Chapters-Edwards-Calculus/dp/0547213107/ That covers calc1 calc2 and calc3.
Once you're getting into calc Physics is a must of course, Math can describe an infinite amount of universes but when you use it to describe our universe now you have Physics, http://www.amazon.com/University-Physics-Modern-12th/dp/0321501217/ has workbooks too that you'll definitely need since you're learning on your own.
At this point you'll have your answers and a foundation to go into advanced topics in all technical fields, this is why every university student who does a technical degree must take courses in all those 3 disciplines.
If anything at least read that biology textbook, you really won't ever have a true appreciation for the living world and you can't believe how often you'll start noticing people around you spouting terrible science. If you could actually get through all the work I mentioned above, college would be a breeze for you.
Introductory reading for biology, molecular biology and biochemistry:
Campbell biology
Molecular biology of the cell
Lehninger principles of biochemistry
I highly recommend his book: http://www.amazon.com/American-Buffalo-Search-Lost-Icon/dp/0385521693
This is how I was introduced to him.
The Superorganism is a great book all about ants and their social heirarchy. The wording in the book tends towards the academic but its still very enjoyable.
Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0393067041
Get a good mineral/rock ID book (I suggest buying this one ahead of time).
You will probably have really good mineral specimens in lab so you won't need a hand lens just yet, but you should buy one anyway (I suggest this one).
When the semester starts, spend a lot of time in lab alone looking at the minerals and memorizing a few key characteristics (name, formula, crystal habit, hardness, streak) of each one. Seriously, get used to being in there on the weekend, bring a beer (brown bag it). If you are good at identifying minerals in hand specimen, it will help out tremendously when you get into Petrology and out in the field. Don't rely on your instructor alone, look around for mineralogy websites from other universities. I found this series of lectures by Doug Haywick to be helpful.
Well, first we have to acknowledge that rocks are different than minerals. And both require different identification. For minerals, u/guaranic has given a good start. Other things to think about to add to u/guaranic are, crystal structure (what shape does it form naturally) and cleavage (how does it break, does it break straight along one plane, two?). The good news is often, though not always, these are observable and most times related. A mineral that does not break along a plane also has no cleavage which also may be a tell.
Now a mineral is composed of one type of element or compound. A rock is composed of minerals. With rocks, in order to learn identification you must first have an understanding of the three main types of rocks: Igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. Each produces a different rock with different things to look for.
Igneous: Igneous rocks are formed from cooling magma, literally liquid minerals. I've is a naturally forming mineral, water is its magma. When you see frost condense on a windshield on a cold day you can see points where the ice began to freeze and grow outward untill it touches another forming ice sheet. Those center points are where the crystal is seeded and how large that seed can grow will corespond with how cold it is. The colder it is the more seeds will start and more crystals with less room to grow means many small crystals. Slower cooling allows larger crystal formation with less crystals to get in the way. In igneous rocks, often crystal size is a good place to start. Are there large crystals? Than this rock most likely formed deeper in gound. Lots of tiny crystals? This probably cooled more rapidly as it approached the surface. Another thing to look at when beginning is the color of the rock over all. basltic lava is less viscous and very dark, often black. It forms oceanic crust . Andesitic lava is a mix between basaltic and rhyolitic, and produces brown and grey rocks like andesite! Rhyolitic magma is the most viscous and most common for us. It's magma doesn't flow like the stereotypical lava in movies. It forms lighter rocks, think granite. With crystal size and general mineral composition, you should be able to tell most types of igneous with some observation.
Sedimentary: sedimentary rocks are made up of broken down rock and minerals. Identification mostly comes down to partial size. However once you grab the basic size differences, the source of the material may also have a play in identification.
Metamorphic: Metamorphic rocks are igneous and sedimentary rocks that have been exposed to hi heat and pressure. This changes the organization of the crystals often times makeing foliation, a good indicator of metamorphic rock. Yet non foliated rocks do exist and are out there and may be hard to distinguish.
The best way to learn how to identify rocks and minerals is to honestly study, and practice. I like this book as a place to start. With good pictures, clear descriptions and fun facts, it was where I got my foot in the door. As well as the Audubon guid. But really once you read a little to get to know what your looking for you can start to figure it out. Although it may not always be as simple as looking at something and knowing what is. You may need to get samples and test things. Minerals may look similar. Some metamorphic rocks you might mistake for igneous. You just got to start by knowing where to look to get a good hunch and an educated guess.
You found these in BC, Canada? I'm surprised- I didn't think Magnolias were found that far northwest and #3 looks just like a leaf from a tree that I didn't think ranged that far north, either.
I usually use a field manual from the the National Audobon Society to do this sort of thing. It will give you all the info you need to identify the type of magnolia. You might want to find a similar field manual for your region- your University library should have them.
For #3: If you find a guide like the one I mentioned, you'll want to look in the pictures section under "simple leaves, untoothed." Once you get a name, you can then go to that section and get all the details you'll need to confirm or determine the specific type.
I love reading this stuff too. I’m a very outdoorsy person. So, if you want a nice non portable book about trees, there’s the david allen Sisley guide to trees. For portable, there are a lot more. The Audubon book is good, it just hasn’t been updated in a longtime. The Peterson guide is more recent and is good also. I’ll try to think of the books we have. My mom has a lot and has ones from her parents too. One that’s good is the national wildlife federation book on wildflowers. A new book that cool is one called wildflowers of the Appalachian trail. On trees, I really like an old edition of the golden guide to trees that we have. The Audubon guide to eastern us trees is good. I think Peterson is better than Audubon though. There is also a forestry department book on trees of around here that I have from middle school. Don’t worry, I’ll provide links to these books.
https://www.amazon.com/Sibley-Guide-Trees-David-Allen/dp/037541519X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524481660&sr=1-1&keywords=Sibley+trees
https://www.amazon.com/GOLDEN-GUIDE-Herbert-Alexander-Martin/dp/B000KIITZK/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524481704&sr=1-3&keywords=Golden+guide+trees
https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Eastern-Trees-Including/dp/0395904552/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524481730&sr=1-1&keywords=Peterson+trees
https://www.amazon.com/Audubon-Society-Field-Guide-American/dp/0394507606/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524481747&sr=1-1&keywords=Audubon+trees
https://www.amazon.com/Wildflowers-Shenandoah-Valley-Ridge-Mountains/dp/0813908140/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524481845&sr=1-3&keywords=Blue+ridge+wildflowers
https://www.amazon.com/National-Audubon-Society-American-Wildflowers/dp/0375402322/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524481845&sr=1-10&keywords=Blue+ridge+wildflowers
https://www.amazon.com/National-Wildlife-Federation-Wildflowers-America/dp/1402741545/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524481922&sr=1-2&keywords=national+wildlife+federation+field+guide
https://www.amazon.com/Peterson-Field-Guide-Wildflowers-North-central/dp/0395911729/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524481968&sr=1-1&keywords=Peterson+wildflowers
https://www.amazon.com/Wildflowers-Appalachian-Trail-Leonard-Adkins/dp/1634040902/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524481991&sr=1-1&keywords=Wildflowers+of+the+Appalachian+trail
http://www.shopdgif.com/product.cfm?uid=2051408&context=&showInactive=N
I’m going to post again once I go look at our bookshelf. This was just off the top of my head. Oh and it’s not a field guide, but you should read a walk in the woods by bill bryson.
This the best guide that I've found:
https://www.amazon.com/Audubon-Society-Field-Guide-American/dp/0394507606
I'm on the West coast so I use the Western version, but I keep a copy of that in my glove box. After a while you get to where you can identify 95% of all the normal species in your area.
This is what I use
*Edit:I have this one too, but I don't like it as much.
You will need boxes for keeping your pinned insects in, and vials for your alcohol-preserved ones (wingless). 70% isopropyl alcohol is what I have used for preserving wingless insects, so you'll need a good bit of that too. Don't forget the pins, and maybe a couple mothballs for keeping the dermestid beetles out of your lovely collection.
For field collecting, you should have a charged kill jar (http://www.uky.edu/Ag/Entomology/ythfacts/4h/unit1/mkjar.htm) and a butterfly net at the very least. I also carry a large jar of alcohol for wingless specimens which I later separate into vials at home.
Be careful with anything you use as the active agent in the kill jar- it IS poison. Always wash your hands after handling specimens.
Oh, almost forgot books. There are a lot of good bug books but you probably want a cheaper one to serve as a field guide. Kaufman's will have a lot of the more common insects that you find (assuming you are in North America). http://www.amazon.com/Kaufman-Field-Insects-America-Guides/dp/0618153101 It's my favorite. Others swear by National Wildlife Federation's or Audubon, which are slightly more advanced. It's a personal preference.
I'm in NorCal and we get those fairly often. On fast rising storm swells out of the north west is when you'll see them most because the energy is so close together the wave energy often gets compounded. You'll be out in 2 ft surf riding a longboard then bam! a long period head high and hollow set rolls through. I'm reading this book right now, you'd probably find it really interesting, they talk about freak waves in the 3rd or 4th chapter.
Exactly. You know those huge container ships? Rogue waves have completely destroyed those, sometimes without a trace. If anyone is interested, you should read a book called The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey. Its partially about big wave surfing and partially about freak waves, a great read over all though.
Here's an article from the NY Times.
is it this?
As far as abiogenesis is concerned, I really enjoyed books such as The Emergence Of Everything, Beginnings Of Cellular Life, Origins Of Life, Genesis, What Is Life?, and Microcosms.
I'm an avid reader of all things abiogenesis, if you hadn't noticed. Considering it and finding ways to simulate it on a computer is one of my hobbies.
Also, Abiogenesis is really part of a larger study of emergence, chaos and order, and how simple things come together to perform complex dances. So on that note, I have a few more books worth reading:
Sync: How Order Emerges From Chaos In the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life, Emergence: From Chaos to Order, and Creation: Life and How to Make it
Seven Life Lessons of Chaos
Though it positions itself somewhat as a self-help book, it's really not -- it touches on many interesting things about nature and humanity. It's short (and maybe enlightening too).
I also enjoyed Sync ... though I'm not sure if some of the findings here have been updated (it's a bit old now).
You might also look at some EO Wilson books.
> I did and still do believe that an ordered universe that allows science to predict anything at all is evidence of a creator, even if it isn't the one I believe in. I've heard others claim that the universe is chaotic, but I don't agree.
The modern view, backed by evidence, is that order and chaos are not dichotomous as was traditionally believed, but rather they both emerge from each other.
Here are some good links with decent, well produced approaches to teaching this concept while providing concrete examples:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xv1j0n
https://www.amazon.com/Sync-Order-Emerges-Universe-Nature/dp/0786887214
I'll also note that neither of the above even approach the question of whether 'a creator' exists, as it is outside of the scope of the presentation and, I think, irrelevant to the overall point. None of this demonstrates definitively that there is no creator. What it does demonstrate, I believe, is that if you are truly seeking fruitful paths to find evidence or arguments for the existence of a creator, order and chaos is not where you should be looking.
That area of the map has been explored, by hundreds of people undoubtedly more clever and observant than you or me, and we've found no gods there. Or, to use another metaphor, I don't think there's any more meat on that bone.
Book in question https://www.amazon.com/Physical-Biology-Cell-Rob-Phillips/dp/0815344503
I think Physical Biology of the Cell is quite good.
If you look online you can find pdfs of
"Physical Biology of the Cell"
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Physical-Biology-Cell-Rob-Phillips/dp/0815344503
This is a book that basically looks at biology through a physicist's lens, rather than a biochemist's.
You could also try "Biological Physics" by Nelson.
These books spend a good chunk of time dealing with topics such as Statistical Mechanics, Self-assembling structures, Polymer Physics, etc...
I don't think this is exactly what you're looking for, but At The Bench - A Laboratory Navigator has a 10-page chapter about keeping a lab notebook.
Here's a brief Google Books preview; unfortunately it does not cover the relevant chapter.
This presentation(PDF link) cites a book called Writing the Laboratory Notebook by Howard Kanare, which (based on the Amazon reviews) might be more geared towards industry labs but could still be pretty useful in a general sense. You can find out for yourself, since I managed to find a full text copy online(PDF link). I don't think I'm accessing this through any proxies, so it does seem like it's freely available.
For a more thorough investigation of what's out there, you should consult your institution's library; I'm sure someone will be happy to help track down the exact book you are thinking of, or something functionally equivalent.
edit - here's a PDF link to another presentation, just for fun
Very highly recommend https://www.amazon.com/At-Bench-Laboratory-Navigator-Updated/dp/0879697083. In grad school, we kept a copy in the lab and gave specific readings to new lab members. It's a super-friendly and pragmatic book, targeted to readers in exactly your situation.
But no book will resolve all the contradictory lab folklore, the field has lots of history and habitual behavior. Many researchers believe that if a particular protocol consistently works, then it's good because it eliminates a source of uncertainty. That doesn't make it the optimal protocol, but because so much of experimental science is eliminating sources of uncertainty, it's a perfectly reasonable opinion.
The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior is a good starting place. It's not as technical as the more academic textbooks, but is much more detailed than some of the other recommendations.
I highly, highly recommend David Sibley's Guide to Bird Life and Behavior. It gives you a tremendous range of information about what are essentially ornithological subfields (evolution, migration, nesting, etc.), but written in a bright and accessible way. Plus with lots of Sibley's lovely illustration!
I might add that although it uses (mostly) North American birds as examples, the general information and insights will be true for all birders everywhere.
Maybe the Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior?
For beetles north of Mexico, I recommend the old favourite, Peterson Field Guides: Beetles of North America. People who complain that the book should have photos instead line drawings don't know what they're talking about. Line drawings are superior for identification because diagnostic traits are more visible. The purpose of a field guide of identification, not to a pretty coffee book (if you want a pretty coffee book, The Book of Beetles is my favorite, and I have it in my living room at the moment).
For insects in general north of Mexico, I recommend the counterpart from the same series.
If you insist on photos, I recommend the National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Insects and Spiders & Related Species of North America (which, by the way, was written by a member of BugGuide.net). Since it has photos, I'd recommend it for beginners. Once they feel more comfortable with insect taxonomy, they should add the Peterson Field Guides to their collection. Avoid the popular Audubon series because it values pretty photos over practicality.
The Peterson Field Guides are great because they provide keys, diagnostic traits, similar families, collecting methods, and a plethora of amazingly detailed line drawings (and color slides). They also have great introductory material. The taxonomy is outdated, but it's not a big issue when you have online guides, like BugGuide.net, that keep their taxonomy current. The more important takeaway is that these guides will quickly teach you insect taxonomy, and you quickly develop a big-picture sense--that is, the diversity--and a granular sense--that is, the subtle difference between similar clades.
As for "state by state" guides, I have the California Natural History Guides: Field Guide to Beetles of California. There aren't line drawings like those in the Peterson Field Guides, but you do have some photographic slides in the middle section. For this, I would only recommend the book for those with enough familiarity with beetles.
Like you said, "the scope of insects is way too huge for a simple, small field guide." Many reviewers don't understand this, and complain about the lack of specificity. To satisfy their specificity, you'd probably need a guide at the city or county level (without exceeding a million pages, and assuming an entomologist is willing to take on that task LOL). Insects are so grossly misunderstood by most people (that is, most people compare the taxonomic scope of insects with that of let's say, mammals, which is like comparing travel guides for the Vatican with that of Russia--or the United States), you are better off ignoring most laymen reviews if your goal is to actually learn.
Here you go, these options should get you started.
https://www.elsevier.com/books/encyclopedia-of-insects/resh/978-0-08-054605-6?dgcid=shopping_low_priority&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI7czEps2m3gIVg7rACh3HQAMzEAQYAiABEgK3lvD_BwE
https://www.amazon.com/National-Wildlife-Federation-Insects-Spiders/dp/1402741537
There's absolutely such a thing as red elderberries. They were all over our property in Olympia, WA, along with the red huckleberries in the 4th and 5th pictures. The red elderberries are supposed to be edible if they're cooked, but after I smelled them cooking I dumped them out.
Red huckleberries are extremely tart compared to the blue ones, more like a red currant, but they make good jam. They take forever to pick, though.
The first and second pictures are Saskatoon berry, also known as Pacific serviceberry.
The last picture is unripe cascara berry. I've never tried those, but in Plants of Coastal British Columbia it says they're "edible but not incredible."
This is pretty tight too
I thought Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple was a good read. (http://www.amazon.com/Clinical-Microbiology-Made-Ridiculously-Simple/dp/1935660152/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418962425&sr=8-1&keywords=microbiology+made+ridiculously+simple)
I recommend getting this review book:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0133458148/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_NN.-zbQBBNHT3
It's kinda pricey but it's a really good outline of the Campbell textbook with practice questions.
This is the best book for AP Biology hands down. Questions are very similar to test and give lots of need to know information and practice.
https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-Biology-School-Pearson-Education/dp/0133458148/ref=pd_sim_14_7?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0133458148&pd_rd_r=a939490d-36cd-11e9-a692-13b9b4e07a01&pd_rd_w=lXCcT&pd_rd_wg=ci0aF&pf_rd_p=90485860-83e9-4fd9-b838-b28a9b7fda30&pf_rd_r=GJD161GBEJMXXBPCJZD6&psc=1&refRID=GJD161GBEJMXXBPCJZD6
https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-Biology-School-Pearson-Education/dp/0133458148/ref=pd_cp_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0133458148&pd_rd_r=5PD225KY0Q6VEGMWB8E2&pd_rd_w=oTcbg&pd_rd_wg=4T6DA&psc=1&refRID=5PD225KY0Q6VEGMWB8E2 this one?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0133458148/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile
I bought this one
I'll add Before the Dawn (http://www.amazon.com/Before-Dawn-Recovering-History-Ancestors/dp/014303832X), which focuses on how scientists have used DNA to answer archaeological questions.
If you really want a deeper look at it, I'd recommend Richard Dawkins; The Extended Phenotype
Book by Donald Prothero that lays out all the fossil evidence for evolution:
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-What-Fossils-Say-Matters/dp/0231139624
> "I've heard this argument before, and it does not hold water."
Nice. A bold but completely empty assertion.
> "It's merely an attempt to shackle the psuedoscience of evolution to many more well-known and proven sciences."
Ohhhh.. and from there you spring to another, completely unsupported, empty assertion.
> "If you're going to make the audacious claim that all sciences must be abandoned if evolution is not embraced,..."
It's not remotely audacious. The fact you can pretend it is only indicated both the depth of your own lack of knowledge about the sciences in general and the equal lack of such knowledge by most in Christian culture.
> "... I'd like to see your proof."
Nice try. You have made a series of empty assertions in order to hand wave away an entire section of science, (evolutionary theory). The evidence for evolution is as strong, as robust, and as complete as it is for any of the other theories I have listed and is often dependent upon them.
The simplest such example is based upon the fact that those who reject evolution are nearly universally Young Earth Creationist, (I am not saying all, but the vast majority). Evolution demands more time than Young Earth dogma allows for. In order to weasel around Geological dating of fossil records, most Young Earth proponents will put forth hypothesis, (they call them 'theories'... it's actually kindof cute in a 'child playing at scientist' sort of way), that tend to do all of the following: fail to account for most of the factual evidence on hand in the geological sciences, demand that we completely throw out all methods of dating used in modern geological sciences, chuck out everything we know in general about geology.
Well, there goes one of the sciences on my list - thrown out for nothing but ideological reasons.
Lets look closer though. Lets look at all of those objections that young earth proponents have about things like carbon dating and potassium dating methods, (etc...). Others, in many other places, have done a much more complete job of disassembling the standard arguments against these dating methods than I have space for here but the short version is that those dating methods are the result of fundamental aspects of everything we know about physics. If those dating methods are wrong, (which, though possible, would require the presentation of something other than assertion and unfounded hypothesis to establish), then pretty much all of physics is wrong. Admittedly, that would be really cool. I doubt you have any idea how exciting that would actually be to most of the physicist I know. However, as cool as it would be, it is not only terribly unlikely there is absolutely no reason to suspect it, (unless, once again, we count the empty assertions of people with ideological positions and no evidence to suggest that they may be remotely correct).
But wait... there goes a second, entire field, of science. Thrown out the window because people don't like the time scales associated with evolutionary theory.
Really, this just goes on and on. It's also not hard to educate yourself about the scientific reality of this topic either. All you have to do is get out of the echo chamber of people committed to rejecting evolution and an old earth and look around at what the 'other side' is actually saying.
Here, I'll even make it easy for you.
Here's a great book, by a Christian, explaining the in's and outs of why Evolution has to be true based upon what we know.
Here is a brilliant book talking about the fossil record, how we know what we know about it, and what that actually tells us.
Here is a fantastic book about geology as taught and explained through the disasters that we, as humans, experience from it's actions on occasion.
Finally, I give you a link to the Science Based Medicine website through their search tool. You will find there several, researching, practicing, medical doctors; all of whom are highly respected in their fields. This is their blog about medicine, science, and all things that impinge upon those fields. I have taken the liberty of entering 'evolution' into their search bar for you. The resulting page of articles is what comes up. If nothing else, it should provide a good place for you to springboard from in the search for whatever you want to know past that in the several books I have pointed you at.
Lastly, I want to make one final point. if you read the books I have pointed you at, if you start reading the articles on the site I pointed you at, if you from there start reading the articles and books and studies available all through the world of science publication and science blogging you will find something pretty quickly. Each of those books has different information in them. Any real study of evolution exposes you to not one, or two, but many lines of evidence, (from almost all of the sciences), showing that it is true. Every single book I have ever read trying to argue against evolution, on the other hand, always ended up attempting to make the same unsupportable arguments, (irreducible complexity, gaps in the fossil records, efforts to deny various dating methods), that have been addressed by proponents of evolution a million times if once. If you can't understand all that, if you can't even take the time to educate yourself about some of it before dismissing the position counter to yours out of hand, then you are showing yourself as having no interest in truth. Instead you are saying that you are only interested in trying to make the world believe that you are right.
Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters by Donald Prothero.
Professing to be an atheist and accepting the sound scientific evidence for evolution are completely disconnected. To try to connect the two is somewhat like saying that because I accept the law of gravity, I must be an atheist. The Watchtower likes to confuse the two by attacking atheism and calling it an argument against evolution. But that’s their logical fallacy - don’t buy into it.
BTW, a book I found helpful in learning about evolution and debunking creationism was “Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters” by Donald Prothero (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0231139624/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=)
http://www.amazon.com/American-Buffalo-Search-Lost-Icon/dp/0385521693/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
http://www.amazon.com/Scavengers-Guide-Haute-Cuisine-Rinella/dp/B001Q9E9L0/ref=pd_sim_b_1
American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon documents the story of one man's trials of hunting a buffalo in 2006 after he wins a hunting lottery of a herd in Alaska near the Copper River. This was an engrossing read and the book has a parallel storyline of the history of buffalo and, particularly, human's relationship with buffalo and how it has changed over millennia. As I began to follow the author's story, I realized that it was neither a one-sided defense for hunting an endangered animal nor a biased lobbying of conservation efforts across the Great Plains; the end result is an emotional state that can only be captured by the complex and convoluted history of buffalo hunting that Steven Rinella captures succinctly and powerfully.
I got a lot out of reading Superorganism. Could be used either as reference or as something to read through.
http://www.amazon.com/Superorganism-Beauty-Elegance-Strangeness-Societies/dp/0393067041/ref=sr_1_26?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382143744&sr=1-26&keywords=ant+book
William Morton Wheeler thought of ant colonies as 'superorganisms' and thought that a colony of ants is like an 'organism.' This concept is much debated, and Holldobler and Wilson provide a more modern treatment in their recent book:
http://www.amazon.com/Superorganism-Beauty-Elegance-Strangeness-Societies/dp/0393067041/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427516536&sr=1-1&keywords=super+organism
I have a few geology guide books, but by far my favorite is my Audubon society field guide to rocks and minerals. It encompasses many different kinds of rocks and minerals, and has clear pictures of each one along with more information about various characteristics of each one, how they are formed, how to identify them, etc... The Audubon society always does a great job with their field guides, and for someone interested in geology I guarantee it will not disappoint.
Here is the link to the guide on amazon. I know the book is geared toward North America but I imagine it will still work in Europe. Enjoy!
If you just want a reference for IDing rocks in the field. This is a pretty good book for that.
If you actually want to learn about how minerals form/chemistry and structure. This textbook is a good one, but I may be biased because Dexter was my mineralogy instructor.
Audubon society book on rocks and minerals is an excellent one
According to the books I have on hand, the antennae of longhorns are often sexually dimorphic: long in females, very long in males! :)
I'd also suggest ditching the Audubon guide. Quite frankly, it's rubbish. Poorly organized, and a number of the photos are incorrectly ID'd. I highly recommend the Kauffman Guide to Insects by Eric Eaton for a broad overview of North American insect fauna.
Otherwise, if you're focusing on butterflies, the Peterson guides are quite useful. The eastern and western volumes by Opler are both useful, but lack quality keys.
The recently revised Peterson guide to Northeastern moths by Beadle & Leckie is impressive in its coverage (but by no means comprehensive) but similarly lacks any sort of useful key for identification.
If you're looking for other field guide recommendations, I'd be happy to share!
The best field guide in the US is the Kaufman insect guide, hands down
I use the Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America.
[You can preview it here] (https://books.google.com/books?id=aWVi0IF_jcQC&pg=PA302&lpg=PA302&dq=Ocyptamus+fascipennis&source=web&ots=N-2Sq3PNbM&sig=B7-AH3uIPt40SJtTr_v1SIKNdFA&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result#v=onepage&q&f=false) to see if it's got everything you're looking for.
If you're the reading type, this book by sports writer Susan Casey follows Laird and a number of other surfers (and scientists) as they track down some monster waves around the Pacific.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Wave-Pursuit-Rogues-Freaks/dp/0767928857
If you go to Myanmar or Thailand, you can see them flash in sync. There's a great book that's not really about the phenomenon as much as it's about spontaneous generation of order from chaos. The author was on a fascinating episode of Radiolab that talks about the firefly thing though.
My observation and perception is that this natural harmony is fundamentally what causes intelligence and consciousness. It is fractal, and it is spontaneous. In simple terms, our brains are giant musical instruments, like thousands or even millions of orchestras in our head, and our thoughts are songs that play along with stimulus from our environment. There are many songs playing in our brains at any given time. The most coherent songs get other orchestras to play along, until one is the most coherent in our mind and becomes the main song for a bit.
The fractal nature of this on the larger scale can be seen in social interactions where there is a public consciousness -- the collective intelligence. The collective intelligence that we see in society might exactly mirror how our individual intelligence works. The fractal nature on a smaller scale can be seen when for instance we notice a sound, such as a wind chime, and it stimulates a larger thought. This happened to me a few years ago when my neighbor's wind "flute" played a certain note according to which way and how intense the wind was blowing. There I was, unloading groceries from the car when it occurred to me that that's exactly how our brains work, albeit on a far more complex scale. We are more or less blowing around in the winds of existence, receiving stimuli from many sources at once, and our brains spontaneously oscillate in response, just like my neighbor's wind flute.
There is an interesting book on this subject called "Sync: How Order Emerges from Chaos in the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life". These natural harmonics are how order spontaneously appears in the universe, and it therefore appears to me that our brains and our intelligence are the opposite of disorder.
I had once watched an interview with a lady who was describing a DMT trip. She felt that our brains are "spiritual antennas". That may not be far from the truth when you think about it, since, as I am proposing, our brains naturally oscillate in harmony with stimuli from our environment. What happens when we are asleep, or under the influence of substances such as DMT, is somewhat more of a mystery than being sober and awake. Is some part of our brain sensitive to unseen quantum harmonics perhaps?
Strogatz is my favorite author for complex syst. and non-linear dynamics: http://www.amazon.com/Sync-Order-Emerges-Universe-Nature/dp/0786887214
Watch his TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_strogatz_on_sync.html
i did my phd in a related field. it seems like you will have enough math and that some more computer programming could be a good thing. the main pitfall in this kind of stuff is that people want to do a bunch of math that is more complicated than it needs to be without tying it back to the biological system.
obviously you will need help from senior people with that, but it seems to me that the best thing you could do to prepare is read a bunch about motor proteins and the cytoskeleton. every cell-biology textbook should have a few chapters on this. i recommend this book if you want something with a bit of math.
if you want, PM me the name of the person you'll be working for. odds are good i know a bit about what they are doing.
I mostly learned from a variety of sources, as there's not an ideal single text on this avenue of research, IMO.
I found general small-angle scattering references for free here and here, the latter being a PDF document from the EMBL small-angle scattering group. For NSE experiments on these sorts of systems, it's pretty much expected you've already done characterization of your samples via small-angle x-ray and/or neutron scattering
I'd also recommend the NIST Summer School course materials as a good and inexpensive way to get started on the neutron spectroscopy side of things. Most of what I'd seen in terms of texts tended to be fairly pricey monographs when starting out, so I'd either borrow stuff from coworkers or my institutional library. There are advanced undergrad/starting grad student texts on x-ray & neutron scattering - e.g., 1 and 2 - but I didn't find out about them until a bit further into my studies.
As might be obvious, there's definitely inspiration and foundational work to be found in the polymer science literature. I went running to Doi and Edwards, for example, when I realized that I needed more background reading in this area, but I'm sure others have their particular favorites in this and related areas.
Insofar as the bio-side of things, well, I've been doing biophysically oriented research since I was an undergrad. I'd suggest a popular biophysics text as well (either Nelson's Biological Physics or Physical Biology of the Cell ) as a starting point/reference. These are aimed towards advanced undergraduates or new grad students as well, mostly due to the interdisciplinary nature of the topics. Speaking of PBoC, one of the authors maintains a publications page where you can check out the PDFs of his group's work.
I think I'll end there, as I think that should be enough pleasure reading for a little while, at least.
You might check these out (my university library had them):
http://www.amazon.com/Lab-Ref-Volume-Reference-Handbooks/dp/0879696303/ref=pd_sim_b_4
http://www.amazon.com/Lab-Ref-Volume-Handbook-Reference/dp/0879698152/ref=pd_cp_b_2
http://www.amazon.com/At-Bench-Laboratory-Navigator-Updated/dp/0879697083/ref=pd_sim_b_1
http://www.amazon.com/Statistics-Bench-Step-Step-Biologists/dp/0879698578/ref=pd_sim_b_3
Hmm... If you're thinking globally, this is going to be hard. A simple checklist of all the bird species of the world is large enough to be a book, literally.
And, it's outdated at the time it's printed.
The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior might be what you're looking for, if North America is enough of the world. Embarrassingly, I own this and almost never look at it.
The Sibley Guide to the Birds of North America is a good desk reference field guide that has more information than most field guides (and is too big to carry around other than as an app on my cell phone, IMHO). I do own it both ways. The book is better, of course. But, I don't carry it as my field guide.
For more than that, you may want to pick a book narrowed down to a particular family of birds, if she has any favorites like raptors or woodpeckers.
Hope you find what you're looking for.
I'd recommend picking up a good field guide and just having fun trying to identify the birds you see around your area. The variety presented in a field guide will seem daunting at first, but it'll quickly become easier as you familiarize yourself with the common families and learn to narrow down the possibilities by range, habitat, behavior, etc. The two major fields guides are by Pizzey & Knight and Simpson & Day. The Pizzey & Knight served me well a few years ago when I was down under. As for a general interest guide, I can only recommend this one, but it's North America-centric. I don't know if there's a good counterpart for Australasia. An excellent way to learn more is to join field trips organized by your local bird club. Plenty of birders would be happy to show you the ropes. If you want to get serious about the hobby, you'd also want to get yourself a good pair of binoculars. Australia's a really fun place to go birdwatching because of its unique and exotic bird life. You're gonna have lots of fun, so get out there and look at some birds!
This is what i have been reading, unlike most other books this one has excellent photos in it.
This one? I've used it a lot and it's quite good.
Edit: Amazon says "May 31st 2007" so I'm not sure if that's the publication date or just the date it became available on Amazon but that makes me think it's probably not this one. This is a good guide so if you can't find the one you had in the 90's I'd recommend either this one or the Kaufman field guide.
I'm a fan of penguin and elephants. I wish I could have a pet octopus! I actually just won a signed copy of The Soul of an Octopus which I am very excited to read.
Plants of Coastal British Columbia is pretty much the standard for coastal BC tree/plant ID. And the BC Tree Book is a real simple one to understand with only native BC tree species.
[Plants of Coastal British Columbia: Including Washington, Oregon and Alaska by Jim Pojar]
(https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1551055325/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_2?pf_rd_p=1977604502&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1594853665&pf_rd_m=A3DWYIK6Y9EEQB&pf_rd_r=ZE56QP0A00SH8K6G23SM)This book here is my holy bible for foraging and IDs. I know you are in Oregon, but I'm on Vancouver Island which is practically in the US and as west coast as it gets. Many of the plants growing where I am grow in parts of Oregon too. Consider fining this book or one similar. IMO a good Id book with images is the most important thing to carry with you (aside from gloves and a pocket knife).
Here are a few books I do not own but have read or heard people recommend.
Medicinal Plants of the Pacific West by Michael Moore
Pacific Northwest Foraging by Douglas Deur
Edible Wild Plants: Wild Foods From Dirt to Plate by John Kallas
Also not specific to just edible plants, http://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/1551055325/ref=pd_aw_sim_b_2?pi=SL500_SY115 is one of my fav identification guides & has lots of details on what's edible.
I’m not saying you don’t have a point... And, If you already feel like psychiatrists are dumbing things down and treating you like a baby, Stahl’s books aren’t going to help.
All I’m saying is that this style is a mnemonic device and books like this, that are intentionally simple/cartoonish and humorous are a meme in medical education. See: https://www.amazon.com/Clinical-Microbiology-Made-Ridiculously-Simple/dp/1935660152
Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Sijmple: http://www.amazon.com/Clinical-Microbiology-Made-Ridiculously-Simple/dp/1935660152
This was uniformly loved by all of my classmates and myself. The author of a lot of the passages has a great sense of humor.
For AP Biology, I liked Barron's and this book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-Biology-School-Pearson-Education/dp/0133458148/
The second book is basically an outlined version of the Campbell Textbook. I found it really helpful and easier to read.
Preparing for the Biology AP* Exam (School Edition) (Pearson Education Test Prep) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0133458148/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_4weRBb3J6VSDV
I used the most underrated but best reviewbook ever (Pearson) + Barron's
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0133458148/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
If anything, get the first one's newest edition (if there is one) because the authors of this book specifically pulled out main ideas from the campbell book that the test will test
Also, if we are making suggestion for what to read, I strongly suggest Nicholas Wade's three somewhat recent books on the evolution of religions, cultures, and modern humans. It might allow you to take a broader view of what seem like neat and narrow issues. The audiobooks are well narrated if you prefer those.
http://www.amazon.com/Before-Dawn-Recovering-History-Ancestors/dp/014303832X/ref=la_B001H6WF40_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410286302&sr=1-2
http://www.amazon.com/Faith-Instinct-Religion-Evolved-Endures/dp/0143118196/ref=la_B001H6WF40_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410286302&sr=1-3
http://www.amazon.com/Troublesome-Inheritance-Genes-Human-History/dp/1594204462/ref=la_B001H6WF40_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410286302&sr=1-1
I'm sure how far back you want to start, but if you want to get into our ancient ancestors, I'd start with Before the Dawn. Follow that up with Cro-Magnon for a decent overview of the first modern human migrations into Europe. There is some overlap with After the Ice-Age, but the latter is a great resource describing the first transitions into agriculture.
The History of the Ancient World would be a good follow up; it's breadth is quite broad, starting with the ancient Sumerians and taking you up to the fall of the Roman Empire, but it's broken into small, readable chunks.
Hopefully this helps to get you started!
Read this
Also Evolution by Donald Prothero was a good one along the same line. He has a couple of talks on youtube based on the book. Your Inner Fish is decent but less substantial. It has a 3 part educational PBS series that I believe is on Netflix. Dawkins is easy to read but he doesn't lay out the evidence as much as he talks about the processes, but those are still good books. The Selfish Gene is excellent.
> Science does not "work differently in different countries". Science is the scientific method.
I LOLed at the ignorance, I really did! Oh dear, what a sheltered little life you must lead. Don't get me wrong, I wish research funding fell out of the sky with no political agenda or strings attached, but sadly that is not the reality. Of course if you knew anything about scientific research, I wouldn't have to explain this to you like you were a child.
> I'm agnostic.
If you're agnostic and you're accusing scientists like myself - people who have reviewed the mountain of evidence in support of the theory of evolution by natural selection that converges from dozens of different disciplines and concluded that it is a fact - of being a cult member, then you are either fantastically ignorant or fantastically stupid. Or both.
As it happens, there are several superb books that explain all of the evidence for evolution in ways that are reasonable accessible to educationally deprived individuals such as yourself. Perhaps a little less Fox News for you, and a little more reading, hmm?
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-Coyne/dp/0143116649/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319155823&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-What-Fossils-Say-Matters/dp/0231139624/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1319155823&sr=8-2
http://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Fish-Journey-3-5-Billion-Year/dp/0307277453/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1319155823&sr=8-3
http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Show-Earth-Evidence-Evolution/dp/1416594787/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1319155823&sr=8-7
If you're into paleontology, you will enjoy Donald Prothero's Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters
You should direct most of these questions to r/evolution, since I think they are for the most part a little more informed and a lot more willing to answer questions on the topic. This should get you started though: talk origins archive on the matter of human evolution
edit: also wanted to add that there are plenty of fossil examples; a great book I would suggest is "Evolution" by Don Prothero. This book is great because it focuses almost entirely on the fossil record, which is oftentimes attacked as having "holes" or lacking transitional forms. Keep in mind that nearly every fossil found could be considered a transitional fossil between an ancestor and something else, the term is really a misnomer.
Back in my day, we used this for Gen Chem and this for Principles of Bio. Don't buy textbooks until you make it to campus because they will most likely be using an updated version. Although which edition you get won't matter for the content, it will matter for the end of chapter questions.
Good luck!
http://www.amazon.com/Campbell-Biology-Edition-Jane-Reece/dp/0321558235/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
Seems like it's a pretty well-used and credible textbook for introduction into biology...
Wow...them you must have been incredibly lucky. Renting from amazon is over $78 and the cheapest used current edition is over $105. http://www.amazon.com/Campbell-Biology-Edition-Jane-Reece/dp/0321558235/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345857076&sr=8-1&keywords=Campbells+biology+9th
You realize that some people spend their life studying a single aspect of the question you just asked. Not a genetic master key however and outside source seems too vague a term. If you're interested there are a lot of resources just start with a college intro to biology textbook - the [one] (http://www.amazon.com/Campbell-Biology-9th-Jane-Reece/dp/0321558235/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376693419&sr=1-1&keywords=campbell+biology+9th+edition) is excellent.
It probably would not be a bad idea to get some knowledge of basic biology. Biochemistry, molecular biology, and genetics are probably the big three sub-disciplines you want to familiarize yourself with, but to do that you need to have a good idea of basic biology. Campell Biology is the textbook of choice for freshman biology. Molecular Biology of the Cell is a fantastic book for molecular and cellular biologists. I, unfortunately, don't know of any good books for synthetic biology itself, but these two can give you a start.
No, he is not technically correct and at this point you seem to be too stubborn to see my point. I was explaining the angry mob, I don't think I was especially hostile toward you in this conversation; I myself was trying to explain to you how what the MP said is wrong and why, but I might get there, your tone isn't helping.
We can demonstrate and observe evolution, it doesn't always take a million years for a species to adopt a mutation, be it natural or artificial, read about it. You're looking at evolution like a mathematician look at an equation, biology isn't looking for a formal "proof", biology’s goal is to explain how it all happened. When every single of the thousands and thousands of observations we have all direct us toward the same answer, when every scientific paper written on the subject have the same conclusions and when all the biologists agree on what might be the most important and fundamental discovery of the field, you suck it up and call it a fact, because that's what it is.
Facts don't go away after a debate, theories might change, but the rock will always fall to the ground and species will always evolve according to their environment.
Since you seem to lack in the science department, I'd recommend this read it's all the basics you need to know. There are some big science words in there so you might need a thesaurus though, if you don't know what a thesaurus is, get your dictionary and work your way up.
Also if you are interested in learning more about buffalo here is a good read. I believe OP's picture is in the book as well as some other good ones.
I'm not, I've read several books and academic papers on the history of the American Buffalo. So have a read an correct yourself.
https://fee.org/articles/buffaloed-the-myth-and-reality-of-bison-in-america/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2079530?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
https://www.amazon.com/American-Buffalo-Search-Lost-Icon/dp/0385521693
https://www.amazon.com/American-Serengeti-Animals-Great-Plains/dp/070062466X
https://www.amazon.com/Destruction-Bison-Environmental-1750-1920-Environment/dp/0521003482
I heard this guy speak in Austin a few years ago. The book has been on my to-do list.
If you like Bison, you should see about stopping at the National Buffalo Museum in Jamestown then. There's some white (albino) buffalo there, some offspring of White Cloud I believe. Sometimes you can see them as you're driving by on I-94, but there's a lot of information and history in the museum.
I'd also recommend Steven Rinella's book: American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon, which can be picked up at the museum.
No, but it WAS by the same author! I found this book, which was the one! Thanks!
Yeah the superorganism idea is pretty cool, there is a must read book if you are interested in that kind of thing.
http://www.amazon.com/National-Audubon-Society-American-Minerals/dp/0394502698
For books:
-I find this field book to be the best newbie friendly to "what's that rock?"
Get your students to talk about geology they've seen in their life to connect it to what's being taught in lecture. I'm learning more about the natural history and geology of my home city of L.A. on the opposite coast than I did living there for half my life by talking in class.
I think the layered rock is sedimentary, the regular patterns indicate seasonal depositions. So it is sort of like tree rings. There are some good books on rocks, you will learn a lot more by reading a few.
Check out a field guide for your area. I'm an entomologist and we recommend the same thing for bugs.
The one I use. Other people may like different ones
http://www.amazon.com/Audubon-Society-Field-Guide-American/dp/0394507606
I think the Audubon Society's format is exactly what you specified. An example would be Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees: Eastern Region
[This is the best field guide I've found so far.] (http://www.amazon.com/National-Audubon-Society-Field-American/dp/0394507606/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347048616&sr=8-1&keywords=field+guide+trees) There's one for the east and another for the west in North America. I do occasionally come across things that aren't in the book. I personally know of several species tree in my area that are in this book so the internet is always a great place to look too. This book covers a lot and is a great resource. It doesn't cost a lot either.
Also: bio books
Ernst Haeckel: Art Forms in Nature Coloring Book https://www.amazon.com/dp/0764974718/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_KJQcBbKBS180V
Art Forms in Nature: The Prints of Ernst Haeckel https://www.amazon.com/dp/3791319906/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_vLQcBb6P811G0
The Anatomy Coloring Book https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321832019/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_VMQcBb9XJGXX9
Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees: Eastern Region https://www.amazon.com/dp/0394507606/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_7OQcBb7QBN95M
National Audubon Society Field Guide to Insects and Spiders: North America (National Audubon Society Field Guides (Paperback)) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0394507630/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_5PQcBb0PZQYNW
Preserved specimen: Real Bat Specimens Science Classroom Specimen for Science Education https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072BCCTL1/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_ZSQcBbE7HYPN2
Real Snake Skeleton Specimen in Acrylic Block Paperweights Science Classroom Specimens for Science Education https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078581LLZ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_OTQcBbN1W3JWE
Models:
Wellden Medical Anatomical Human Skull Model, 3-part, Numbered, Life Size https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EKC5SHS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_YZQcBbCF8D61B
I'm not certain about what kind of detail you are looking for, but this book is really the only I use. I have a minor in entomology, and I have several textbooks that have much more detail, but this is the one I pick up most often, especially for helping folks in /r/whatsthisbug. :)
For a general bird guide, I like the Sibley guide (you can use the Sibley East field guide, or the larger Sibley guide for all of North America). There are also those who swear by the National Geographic guide and insist that it is superior.
That should be good to get you started – eventually if you get more into birdwatching, then there are more detailed guides for specific groups.
For insects, I love this massive photographic guide. For a smaller book you can take into the field, the best one I know of is Kaufman. There is also a Kaufman guide for butterflies, specifically.
I'm afraid I don't have any recommendations for mammals, reptiles, or amphibians for your area.
I use the Kaufman field guide to insects of north america to identify insects at least down to the family level. It doesnt have every species, but it has the most common ones from each family and very good pictures imo. It can be ordered on amazon here https://www.amazon.com/Kaufman-Field-Insects-America-Guides/dp/0618153101
I haven't seen anything where he suggests he is an academic scientist? AntsCanada actually released a video where he visited academic scientists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCIG3EwpU5w&ab_channel=AntsCanada and I've noticed a lot of them congregate on the forums. I prefer the term myrmecophily for myself. But I'd also love to get a formal "doctorate in myrmecological studies" title some day.
I think the definition of what it takes to be called a "myrmcologist" really depends on your stance toward citizen science. Do you need to have a fancy degree and lab experience to bring value to the world with scientific rigor? Certainly, calling oneself a 'doctor' or giving an MD/PHd title would be questionable, but I don't think any academic institution has a monopoly on the term myrmcologist itself.
Interestingly, E.O. Wilson actually wrote a book on that strange dichotomy.
As for ant poop, the "ant sorting algorithm" is a well known phenomena, even being used as inspiration for distributed robotics. As for journal published research on bathroom etiquette, there's some work being done in that area. that is quite interesting. There's also some great work being done on how ants measure and count things like this at a behavioral level at the intersecting of computer science and biology sciences.
Read up on 'consilience of evidence', so that you can understand that a consensus has been reached, about the primary cause of recent warning being attributable to the increase of atmospheric CO2, from the burning of fossil fuels.
'Consilience' is a bit of a technical term, and it was coined by the famed biologist, Edward Wilson, who wrote a whole book about it. If you disagree with the consensus, then I'd recommend that you read that book http://www.amazon.com/Consilience-Knowledge-Edward-Osborne-Wilson/dp/067976867X
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge by E.O. Wilson
With regards to the blog post:
Your point was to create a distinction between students and working social scientists, which is unfounded given the highlighted segment of the post.
With regards to using personal experience as evidence:
I brought it up once, to meet you half on your emphasis on personal experiences. It was not intended as evidence or proof or anything of that sort.
I am not so foolish as to think my own experiences are inherently generalizable.
With regards to having no sources:
At the moment I have three, and to counter I have "No, I've seen different".
But alright, if you wish more:
http://www.amazon.ca/Third-Culture-Beyond-Scientific-Revolution/dp/0684823446
https://www.dukeupress.edu/Science-Wars/index-viewby=author&lastname=Aronowitz&firstname=Stanley&middlename=&sort=newest&aID=1472866.html
http://www.amazon.com/Consilience-Knowledge-Edward-Osborne-Wilson/dp/067976867X
Anyway, this discussion has clearly become pointless. You refuse to acknowledge any evidence that doesn't fit into your personal narrative and keep attempting to assert what I'm saying is ridiculous to dismiss my point.
But on the plus side, your argumentation has fully convinced me you're a social scientist.
It looks like a lot more people here need to read: http://www.amazon.com/Consilience-Knowledge-Edward-Osborne-Wilson/dp/067976867X/
CONSILIENCE - Edward O. Wilson IS the answer to your question.
After reading the other comments, there is nothing that is BETTER at explaining social AND scientific history in combination with each other than this book alone. PLEASE do check it out, it is one of my absolute favorites and I have gifted it many times to both social and scientific students and employees.
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge
There's a really good book, called The Wave, appropriately enough, about these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0767928857/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_N.v2Ab74BFAR9
Initially I'd avoid books on areas of science that might challenge her (religious) beliefs. You friend is open to considering a new view point. Which is awesome but can be very difficult. So don't push it. Start slowly with less controversial topics. To be clear, I'm saying avoid books that touch on evolution! Other controversial topics might include vaccinations, dinosaurs, the big bang, climate change, etc. Picking a neutral topic will help her acclimate to science. Pick a book related to something that she is interested in.
I'd also start with a book that the tells a story centred around a science, instead of simply trying to explain that science. In telling the story their authors usually explain the science. (Biographies about interesting scientist are a good choice too). The idea is that if she enjoys reading the book, then chances are she will be more likely to accept the science behind it.
Here are some recommendations:
The Wave by Susan Casey: http://www.amazon.com/The-Wave-Pursuit-Rogues-Freaks/dp/0767928857
Fermat's Enigma by Simon Singh: http://www.amazon.com/Fermats-Enigma-Greatest-Mathematical-Problem/dp/0385493622
The Man who Loved Only Numbers by Paul Hoffman: http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Loved-Only-Numbers/dp/0786884061/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405720480&sr=1-1&keywords=paul+erdos
I also recommend going to a book store with her, and peruse the science section. Pick out a book together. Get a copy for yourself and make it a small book club. Give her someone to discusses the book with.
After a few books, if she's still interested then you can try pushing her boundaries with something more controversial or something more technical.
No, The Wave:
https://www.amazon.com/Wave-Pursuit-Rogues-Freaks-Giants/dp/0767928857
http://www.amazon.com/The-Wave-Pursuit-Rogues-Freaks/dp/0767928857
Always gets me pumped before winter season.
There are some really good suggestions here, but a couple of books that were good entry points for me haven't been mentioned yet:
Sync by Steven Strogatz.
How The Universe Got Its Spots by Janna Levin.
Both of these books are rather specific interest type books, but they're both written so well that they are easy entry points into more reading later.
Edit: Ooh ooh I forgot about Plagues and Peoples. A great read that really makes you rethink global history, along the lines of (and drastically predating) another great book about cultural history Guns, Germs and Steel. Both of these books are kind of a mix of history, sociology and science, so it might not be what you're looking for though.
For a really interesting description of the underlying principles at work here I'd highly recommend checking out Sync: How Order Emerges From Chaos In the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life by Steven Strogatz.
At the Bench: A Laboratory Navigator by Kathy Barker is really helpful. I bought this book and read it when I started working in the lab. It is very basic!
I use the National wildlife federation's field guide. It is by no means exhaustive but it helps me identify most things. The pictures are great.
https://www.amazon.com/National-Wildlife-Federation-Insects-Spiders/dp/1402741537/ref=pd_sim_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1402741537&pd_rd_r=CYNBQ573JKYM4SCS4W21&pd_rd_w=7e5Oe&pd_rd_wg=VTINW&psc=1&refRID=CYNBQ573JKYM4SCS4W21
There is an awesome book called The Soul of An Octopus that talks a lot about this subject. If you are interested in Octopuses at all you should check it out.
The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness, by Sy Montgomery
Much appreciated!
I actually plan to study medicine myself, and I've seen the flashcard flow chart. From your post, I take it you recommend beginning with zanki, and thus relying on Pathoma and Sketchy?
It'll be a few years until I'll start studying, but I've been thinking about—as a primer—doing Incremental Reading on these first.
Dunno what you think about that?
"Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple"
was very helpful through my MLS program, the ASCP generalist exam, and still as a reference at the bench. Here's an Amazon link:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1935660152/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_todeBbCRTCF6J
"no scientific consensus that black people are genetically predisposed to lower intelligence"
The report is by the APA from 1996. The APA in 96 to even acknowledge that there was a gap was a huge thing, considering its bias. Discoveries have ramped up in the last few years so I don't know why wikipedia is relying on sources from 94 & 96 considering the human genome mapping wasn't completed until 2003. Discoveries since then have been one after another.
It's no surprise wikipedia comes to the PC conclusion, but it suffers from problems. It acknowledges that the black-white test gap exists. Either it is genetic, or environmental. There has been decades of money, and time thrown at fixing the environment by rich billionaires like Gates, and others. Dozens upon dozens of education, nutrition, parent swapping (giving black babies to whites), and other experiments, and they all failed. There is not a single study in the world that can claim lasting gains in the IQ gap. This bit of evidence would point to a genetic basis right? That and the fact that twin studies (the only proper studies that can control for genes) shows intelligence, among other dispositions, are highly heritable. In that wikipedia page, they link to the actual numbers from the APA study: "A 1996 statement by the American Psychological Association gave about .45 for children and about .75 during and after adolescence."
Finally, does that statement even pass the laugh test? "Science" doesn't work by consensus, but if it did, wouldn't it be relevant to ask the actual scientists involved in intelligence research?
There are people with very high intelligence, very low IQ, and everyone between. Most people can recognize that height is highly heritable, but it isn't a guarantee, sometimes you are taller than your tallest parent, sometimes you are shorter than the shortest parents. Most times you regress towards the mean. The idea that the brain is a blank slate has been discredited by Steven Pinker, Noam Chomsky, and others. The brain comes with innate abilities, abilities that are partly inherited from your parents genes.
If you are actually concerned with finding the truth you can read Nicholas Wade, who writes for the NYTimes. The 10,000 Year Explosion. Or Gene Expression1. Or Gene Expression2. Rather than having your views filtered by whoever happens to be editing one of the many wikipedia pages.
The methodology and approach here reminds me of E.O. Wilson's concept (and book), called "Consilience" - which concerns the unity of disparate forms of knowledge (e.g. science and religion). Also: The wiki for Consilience. Speaking of book signing, I actually got my copy of Consilience signed by Wilson and he inscribed a cute little ant as his signature (he is an entomologist). Edit: I forwarded Rick the link to this thread. Would be great if he stopped by.
The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness https://www.amazon.com/dp/1451697724/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_O9CMzbH42J2WS