It’s that time of the summer again, when classes loom all too near, and enthusiastic students start asking for the reading ahead of time so that they can both find the books from a cheaper source than our bookstore and get a jump on the material. So to handle all those requests at once, here is a list of my fall term classes:
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If you’re an incoming freshman biology major, you’ll be taking Biology 1111, Fundamentals of Genetics, Evolution, and Development (FunGenEvoDevo, for short), either in the fall or the spring term. This course is primarily a qualitative introduction to the basic concepts of the scientific method which will also give you an overview of the fields described in the title. It has two textbooks, but you’ll also be getting some assigned readings from the scientific literature as the term goes on.
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Science as a Way of Knowing: The Foundations of Modern Biology(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by John A. Moore. This is the primary required text for the course; you may be surprised when you read it, since it doesn’t fit the usual expectations of an introductory biology textbook. We did tell you this was a liberal arts university when you enrolled, though, didn’t we?
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Life: The Science of Biology(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by David Sadava, H. Craig Heller , Gordon H. Orians, William K. Purves, David M. Hillis. This book is optional, but highly recommended, and will be used as a reference text throughout the course. You can get by using the copies in the reference section of the library, but since this book will also be used in our required biodiversity and cell biology courses, you might as well bite the expensive bullet and get a copy now. The links above are to the 8th and latest edition; it’s fine to use the 7th edition.
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A smaller number of more advanced students may be taking Biology 4003, Neurobiology. This course will be taught rather more socratically than your usual lecture course, so be prepared for more external readings (and you can also propose your own interests), but there will be one reference text and a couple of general books on the subject that we’ll be reading together.
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Neurobiology: Molecules, Cells and Systems (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Gary G. Matthews. This is a traditional neuroscience textbooks — you aren’t escaping this term without knowing the Goldman equation and a little anatomy and pharmacology.
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Time, Love, Memory: A Great Biologist and His Quest for the Origins of Behavior(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Jonathan Weiner. Why should we care about neuroscience? This book will help you figure it out, and it’s excellent description of the research enterprise might nudge a few of you towards grad school (or scare you off, but either outcome is good.)
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Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain—and How it Changed the World(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Carl Zimmer. We’ve got to at least touch on the history of the field, and this book will give you an fine overview of what people have been thinking about that blob of goo resting in your cranium. Those students planning on med school will also find the perspective here useful.
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Feel free to order them ahead of time. Be sure to have them by the first week of classes, though … I tend to plunge in right away with a stack of assignments on the first day!
Order books ahead of time? Ha! How many students actually fall for this, do you think???
Science as a Way of Knowing
Gah, I hate that phrase. Mostly because it is used by people who pretend that there are other effective “ways of knowing,” such as making ***** up; er, I mean revelation.
We actually get a fair number who do that, but then, we are the smart campus of the UM system, you know.
Just reading a book list makes my stomach knot up with apprehension. 25 years out of college and I still have dreams where it is the end of the semester and I realize that I either have never been to class or have not read any of the books. How the hell am I going to finish the paper/pass the exam?
Typical, and yet it makes me wish I was enrolled in something. *wistful sigh*
Hey, are you going to put everything on-line again? I was thinking of just cruising by and following what your students are reading. I’m too busy to go to grad school, but I wish I wasn’t. Man, I am a sick bastard for even suggesting this…sigh.
Wait, you mean you aren’t assigning the Atlas of Creation?!? Your syllabus is FALSE.
What, Darwin’s Black Box a little too controversial for you? Afraid it’ll rock the foundations of your belief in Satanic Darwinism? Or are you just another mindless shill to the military-industrial-entertainment-science complex?
Gaah, now I have to wash my hands. How the hell do the IDiots do it all day, every day?
I’m glad to hear I’m not the only undergrad that starts reading her texts ahead of time. I’m taking Animal Behavior AND the Psychology of Altruism and I’m having fits of Nerd Glee over it.
I doubt I’ll be taking any biology classes, but I do wish those general elective classes didn’t require over $100 text books.
Warren: “…the military-industrial-entertainment-science complex.”
I nominate that for Oxymoron of the Day.
I am not a UM student (just a permanent student of an independent and informal kind) but I will order all of these books.
Damn.. I must be a masochist, but reading that list makes me want, desperately, to go back to school. I think if I ever won the lottery I’d do nothing but travel and accumulate degrees.
I won’t be your student, Mr. Myers (different countries, plus I already have my degree), but I’ll add the first and the last titles of the list to my Amazon wishlist, just in case I feel like reading them some day. Thanks.
The “Soul Made Flesh” book looks fabulous. I think I’ll order that one up and read it. Thanks, PZ.
Zimmer’s book is the only one I’ve read of the above. It’s pretty cool, and not particularly technical. Although some of the descriptions of vivisectional practices squicked me out even through the fascination of what the experiments demonstrated for those early biological pioneers.
The historical perspective was also interesting, particularly the parts over the religious conflicts of the early anatomical/medical era. So much destruction and death and cruelty over the “right” way to talk to and about an imaginary being…
Rebecca, “The Soul Made Flesh” is a wonderful read. You’re in for a treat.
*sigh* Sounds like me in too many of my subjects. Usually I somehow manage to make up for it – in the next try….
(full disclosure: I work full-time while being enrolled at university. My professors usually know this, and know that it’s not always that I actually make it through their subject to the exam)
Oh, and speaking of Carl Zimmer and The Soul Made Flesh, one of his recent blog posts is about an image that appears in the book: One of the first scientifically detailed drawings of the brain, done by the architect “Christopher Wren in 1664 for Thomas Willis, the first neurologist.”:
http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2007/07/09/a_handsome_brain.php
At my age, I’m glad I’m married to a Ph.D. rather than trying to get a Ph.D. But, seriously, ditto what #12 said, uh, except for the travel part. Hate traveling now; been there, done that, brought back crappy souvenirs from half-way around the planet.
PZ said “but then, we are the smart campus of the UM system, you know.” Hm, I thought the Twin Cities campus, where dh was offered a position, was the smart campus. Heh heh
Ooh, I can’t believe you aren’t using the following as a resource (“creation science”, now that’s a big oxymoron for ya):
Free Creation Science Videos
Answers in Genesis now offers free creation science videos online, on demand. Add some assignments of your own, discuss, and quiz if you’d like to use these great resources as a course in creation science in your homeschool or co-op curriculum. There are dozens and dozens
available now, with more being added each week.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/video/ondemand
Oh, no — the Twin Cities campus is the one that hired Greg.
Thanks! I was told that we wouldn’t find out what books we’d need until orientation and that we would have to buy at the school’s bookstore. Now I don’t, at least for this class. I’m glad the main one isn’t expensive at all.
Tsk, tsk. They shouldn’t tell you that. I know several other professors who inform their students of their textbook lists ahead of time, and make alternative sources known. You can also email them and ask (I was prompted to do this because I got several requests in email to let them know.)
We also get requests from the bookstore to list our fall term books at the end of spring term, so we all definitely do know which books we’ll be using well before orientation.
It wasn’t a school official or anything, I posted a message in a Facebook group for the 2011 class and someone sent me a message saying that’s how it usually works for 1st semester freshman year. I guess they were wrong, haha.
I tried the online bookstore the other day and it wasn’t working, I’ll try again in a few minutes.
Also, there is a paperback edition of the Life book for a lot cheaper, is that okay to get or would it be better getting the hardcover? Thanks.
The paperback isn’t cheaper: it’s a sneaky trick. There are multiple paperback volumes that you’d have to buy to get the equivalent of the whole hardbound book.
Oh, right, I see it now. Thanks for the warning.
Oh, and while it is expensive, the cost is amortized over three courses, so it’s really not such a bad deal.
Just for the sake of truth in advertizing, shouldn’t you change the freshman course name to Biology 666, just so the fundamentalist students know what they’re in for if they start trying to argue in favor of ID?
Personally, I’d like to see the horns grow and the tail pop out but …
Did you know that if you can read half your textbooks before the semester starts you can handle twice as many classes? Whee!
PZ,
Are you perhaps earning a few pennies on orders? I see that the links to amazon have your name after them which might indicate that you do.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that other than perhaps full disclosure……
Apparently, we’re going to have the modules for those fairly soon…
PZ,
You do point out to the kids that GHK is just a heuristic, don’t you? That the actual equation is the full circuit?
*sigh* PZ, I wish I could be in one of your classes…all my undergrad profs were boring…or crazy (in a bad way – one of them had a habit of referring to himself in the third person).
Owlmirror: Willis, the first neurologist? Didn’t Galen or someone notice that head injuries provoked psychological results?
Some of us know. On the adjunct level, you can never be sure. I picked up a new class three weeks ago (but the nice thing is I may actually be benefits eligible this year). I placed my book orders this week, and I don’t think I’m the last in the department to do so.
one of my heroes, Robert Greene Ingersoll, wrote this about Christmas in 1891.
The good part of Christmas is not always Christian — it is generally Pagan; that is to say, human, natural.
Christianity did not come with tidings of great joy, but with a message of eternal grief. It came with the threat of everlasting torture on its lips. It meant war on earth and perdition hereafter.
It taught some good things — the beauty of love and kindness in man. But as a torch-bearer, as a bringer of joy, it has been a failure. It has given infinite consequences to the acts of finite beings, crushing the soul with a responsibility too great for mortals to bear. It has filled the future with fear and flame, and made God the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, destined to be the home of nearly all the sons of men. Not satisfied with that, it has deprived God of the pardoning power.
And yet it may have done some good by borrowing from the Pagan world the old festival called Christmas.
Long before Christ was born the Sun-God triumphed over the powers of Darkness. About the time that we call Christmas the days begin perceptibly to lengthen. Our barbarian ancestors were worshipers of the sun, and they celebrated his victory over the hosts of night. Such a festival was natural and beautiful. The most natural of all religions is the worship of the sun. Christianity adopted this festival. It borrowed from the Pagans the best it has.
I believe in Christmas and in every day that has been set apart for joy. We in America have too much work and not enough play. We are too much like the English.
I think it was Heinrich Heine who said that he thought a blaspheming Frenchman was a more pleasing object to God than a praying Englishman. We take our joys too sadly. I am in favor of all the good free days — the more the better.
Christmas is a good day to forgive and forget — a good day to throw away prejudices and hatreds — a good day to fill your heart and your house, and the hearts and houses of others, with sunshine.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
dammit, posted that in the wrong place, sorry.
Daenku32, I’d try the used book listings, campus book store, used book section, university bulletin boards (probably craigslist now), other used book stores, and finally thrift stores. Garage sales and boulevards (boxes of books set out free for the taking) are good for text books, too.
The up side is that it’s cheap: I got my copy of Carl Zimmer’s Evolution for about $1.50 at a Goodwill store. The down side is that it’s very random; what you want might never show up. The best compromise is probably to order a used one. That $138 book is $10 used for the previous edition.