I received a query from reader Jodi, of Nova Scotia (I so want to visit there one summer) about how to learn about a scientific subject as a layperson. Of course being a philosopher I was able to answer her quickly, but readers may wish to comment more authoritatively and knowledgeably, as we know philosophy is not bound by little things such as facts. This comes from a comment I made in my talk recently about getting one's theory of evolution from Dawkins or Gould... [Now there's a red rag to a certain curmudgeonly bull in Toronto]. Below the fold:
Jodi wrote:
Hi there,
My name is Jodi ..., I live in Nova Scotia, Canada and I'm interested in studying biology. I recently listened to your talk: "Species, Traditions and Corporations: What is it that evolves?" and I remember you making a particular point about learning biology from people such as Richard Dawkins (whom I have only read/seen a few things from) and getting it all wrong. I was simply wondering if you had any suggestions for books/materials/texts on biology for someone just starting out in the study (aside from basic high school biology). I know that ideally a university course would be best but admittedly I can't afford that at the moment but still want to make some progress in my education.
Any suggestions at all would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks so much,
Jodi
I replied:
Dear Jodi
Generally high school biology texts are worthwhile to start with, and then university texts - you can usually pick up second hand copies for not very much at bookstores. However, the problem lies in the nature of textbooks.
A textbook contains what is widely regarded by all to be true about ten or twenty years ago, updated where the current authors have some knowledge. This means they are a very good source for many things but need an expert eye to correct them. This is fine when your teacher is the expert, but usually students learn "what everybody knows" in that discipline and as they become more expert they unlearn some of it. Not all of it, but some.
Specialist monographs - books that cover only a restricted topic (like say seal reproduction in Nova Scotia) will give you up to date knowledge in more detail than you ever wanted. And technical papers will give you cutting edge research not quite accepted by all yet (if they are cited, then they are accepted, unless they are cited to be disputed - isn't science fun?)
There is no easy path to good knowledge, so the question is best stated: "how much effort do I want to put in in order to say sensible things about biology?" The answer is, I think, as much as you need to not make a fool of yourself if you happen to be talking to an expert. Experts are very easy going - if you show you know the basics, they are pleased and will happily correct any errors you may have got (*so* happily!). That a lay person knows the basics is a great compliment to their discipline.
So in short, read the (undergraduate level) textbooks, and if you want to make a general claim, go through Google Scholar or some similar search engine to find exceptions. But to understand the general theory of a domain you have to read the theoretical works, and that means... math! So if math scares you as it does me, find summary papers. One good source for biology is the Annual Reviews in... - these are specialist volumes that give papers that summarise for the general biologists the current state of play, and they are usually very approachable even for a nonbiologist. AR in Ecology and Evolution [NB: note proper title at the link] is a very good series.
Hmm... this is a good post for the blog. Do you mind if I put your letter up?
John
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Hi, that was me! (I suppose I could have just used my real name in here but pixelsnake is my common handle).
Thanks for the advice, I'll definitely be putting it to good use.
As a side note, I'd recommend a visit either in late May (apple blossom season, festival and all) or mid October (stunning colors on the trees) as these are the prettiest times of the year ;)
Excellent reply. :) I'm currently going through an undergraduate biology textbook on my own, so it's good to have some other ideas.
You can find a number of Biology books online, too. E. g. NCBI has a "bookshelf". A lot of the books are about highly specific topics but there're also more general ones. Most of the general books are college/university level but if you're interested in a specific question that your high school textbook doesn't answer you may find an answer in a more advanced book. Some examples: Biochemistry, The Cell, Developmental Biology, Genomes, Immunobiology.
Another place to look for online science books is here.
If you were in the UK I would recommend that you consider taking some biology courses with The Open University (maybe even doing a full degree with them), but it might be rather expensive to take these from outside the UK. However, their might be similar distance-learning institutions in North America.
Great set of links. I commented about this subject on another post, so I will chime in and repeat myself. What if you have had the intro course in science, chem 101 etc. and would like to go to the next level without taking time off from work to do graduate level classes? I should take evening courses but my day is long enough. It would be nice to be able to follow these debates in the literature without spending an arm and a leg to buy the journals. The open access journals are nice but a small sample of whats out there. Just wondering if anyone has experienced something similar.
Nova Scotia (I so want to visit there one summer)
You'll want to see Joggins, of course (I hear the museum there has expanded since we visited some 10 years ago), with a trip down to Parrsboro to see that museum, and the beach where the dino fossils are. Cumberland County has amazing geology (as well as fantastic scenery).
One of my professors thought that the course of undergraduate education in geology was that the professors spent the first year lying to the students and the next three years trying to convince the students they had been lied to.
Indeed false facts can persist for a long time in textbooks. I could cite several examples.
I used to argue with my cutting edge colleagues that an introductory course should not contain any idea which was less than five years old. An idea should have enough virtue to persist for five years if we are present it to our freshmen students.
For the completely clueless, a text designed for a university non-majors course should be useful. These texts generally give a simple exposition of what one needs to know about chemistry and physics to think about biological processes.
I don't quite agree with John's negative view of textbooks. My perspective is closer to Jim's (above).
Textbooks should be wary of incorporating the latest fads because they are most likely to turn out wrong. On the other hand, they should be careful to avoid sticking with old fashioned ideas without checking to see whether they have been updated.
The Evolution textbook by Douglas Futuyma is an excellent book. I don't think you'll find any serious errors in that book.
-- a certain curmudgeonly bull in Toronto who happens to be a fan of Stephen Jay Gould
A couple of variations based on my own self-teaching experiences. First, though, I'll support that there is no royal road. You'll have to hit the books intended for majors in the topic if you want that kind of understanding.
One part is, there are many, many books out there. Most of them were not written for you to teach yourself the subject. Visit the (university) library or bookstore and pull a bunch of books on the topic off the shelf. Then, with notebook in hand, try to really work with them to understand something of the subject. 90%, you'll find, were written assuming that you have a teacher explaining the material to you, or there's a lab section, or ... any number of things that you as a self-teacher won't have available. That's fine, because even 10% will leave you with fair choice in popular areas and earlier (in college or high school) levels. But do grant yourself leave to be ruthless in tossing those that aren't suited to your self-teaching.
Biology particularly has a huge vocabulary to be built up. I've found that in areas like that, you can be better off to select a sub-area (biochemistry, evolution, ...) that you're interested in and hit the 200-300 level (i.e. up from the 100 that you're really aiming for) books in that area. Have the intro book at hand to give you the background that's being assumed. But, since it's a sub-area, the vocabulary demands are not as imposing. Plus you get to play with meatier things.
However you divide it, though, be assiduous about learning the meanings of the terms mentioned. In the later stages there'll be a lot of assuming that you already know, well, all the words used in previous chapters. Because of that, in early chapters, you could glide past the one word per sentence you don't know (or the one element of math). But in later sections, the sentences will start looking like "The XXXXX is YYY by ZZZZ DDDD FFF EE, so we see that ZZZZZ and DDDD are RRRRR because A@#$# @#$!...."
A different thing, not limited to learning subjects, is: Decide why you are doing this. What is your goal? How will you know when you get there? Give yourself some way-point goals. 3 chapters, 2 months, ... whatever. If the larger target will take you a year to reach, put up some smaller ones you'll hit every few weeks along the way. And it won't help to figure out some rewards you'll give yourself at each one.
Between the earlier in college level topics and 'go read the professional journals' ... it gets difficult. It's hard to find such books in public libraries and general bookstores. Even if you do, it becomes difficult to tell if this is the jr. year book or the second year graduate text. For that, I vulture off area colleges. Fortunately I have a few handy. Still, even if it's quite a trip to get to one, do so. While there (you want to arrive early in the term) hit the campus bookstore for the books being required in subjects you'd like to learn about, that are on the right level, and see if any are suitable for self-teaching. If they are, you're set. Failing this, I'd go for an email to the relevant department(s) asking the faculty what they'd recommend for someone at your current level and with your goals.
Regardless of level and interest, I think it's enormously helpful to have projects that you're going to do with the knowledge as you gain it. If you're learning about ... say molds, then culture some on bread yourself and look at them under magnifying glass and microscope and see what you can -- before you read the chapter on them. If it's a language you're learning, find someone somewhere you can talk to and try out your new vocabulary. You have to be much more active about the 'try to use your new knowledge' in teaching yourself than when you have someone else doing it. It's far, far, too easy to let the words pass before your eyes as you nod 'sure, that makes sense' -- without really getting a firm grip on the knowledge.
Do you have a near by university?
At my uni (same as John's for now)you can
a) pay a fee to join the University library and that will allow you access to both journals and books
b) Volunteer in some labs (the same goes for museums). I consider it like a battering system. I give them labour, they give me knowledge and experience. I started as a volunteer with no knowledge in the field the lab studied, and now I am a postgrad in the field, preparator and represent the lab around the place.
c) 'audit' lectures. I have 'done' a few courses at uni without actually paying for them or doing the assesment. Lectures are often fine, tutes are more difficult, but if you are enthusiastic enough some academics will wave you in.
As for the seemingly polarising textbook issue? By god you will have to be enthusiastic. I dont think I even read the texts when I was doing the subjects (and I am not a lay about student). If what you want is to get to know the processes of science I thnk reading a wide range of pop-science can be great. Sure if you take Dawkins as gospel *smirk* you would be more than a touch off track, but read a few, especially ones that argue against eachother, and that just may be an experience in real science itself. These kinds of books can also lead into the literature. If you go ahead and read the papers mentioned by the authors, and then maybe read some of the interesting looking ones in that ref list etc, you might find a path that interests you.
How about MIT Open Course Ware? http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm - this has lectures and course materials from MIT classrooms for free, including some in biology.
what evolution is by ernst mayr is one of the best introductions, I highly recommend reading it
If you're just after textbooks to inform yourself with, wait until a university bookshop (if you have such handy) has a sale. Often they'll be getting rid of last year's set text at about a tenth of the orginal cost. There's nothing wrong with these books other than their not being required reading any more, or being the second-to-last edition.
I got my invertebrate zoology book that way, and refer to it all the time. Any edition of "Ecology" by Krebs is worth having, and so is the Kardong book on vertebrates.
Access to scientific publications for the general public has really imporved over the last few years. Google scholar seems to sniff out lots of online sources, and there's a lot of open-access journals popping up.
Anything you need clarification on, you can always come back and ask John ;-)
Ian I says,
Here's a typical lecture from that site: Introductory Biology
This one happens to be one of the few lectures about evolution. I urge everyone to read it in order to get a good idea of the quality of information on the MIT OpenCourseWare website.
To me it looks like high school level biology. You're much better off reading a good college-level evolution textbook, like Futyuma's.
Wow thanks so much everyone!
That's a lot of really great information. I do plan to go to university eventually (and I do have one near me, Acadia University, but I'm not convinced about their science programs, Dalhousie University -about an hour and a half away- looks better). I just never felt like I really 'got' biology and the sciences in general when I was in highschool, but I've taken an interest in it lately and I finally feel like I'm really understanding the things I didn't before. So I guess I just want to brush up/continue to learn about biology in the time I'm saving up for Uni instead of just doing nothing ;) Maybe I'll have a better shot at succeeding if I have lots of knowledge beforehand.
Thanks again, you guys have been really helpful :)
Good advice! I'm studying Biology at UPEI and I often find myself reading through the interesting bits of my textbooks instead of studying what I'm supposed to be.
If you do end up visiting Nova Scotia, definitely hop on the ferry and take the time to do some running around on our island. You won't regret it.