The best Biology books: Reddit reviews

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

The Feynman Technqiue can be a good place to start. Basically entails learning a concept and then writing it down (or explaining it in your head) in a way that would be understandable to a class of 3rd graders. That way if there's any gap in your understanding you can figure out where you need to improve your understanding. Makes the ideas very strong in your mind like you are looking for.

You could also check out Moonwalking with Einstein. It sounds like that's more the sort of thing you're looking for. It goes into teaching the reader how to use the memory palace technique to develop a near perfect memory.

EDIT: Added the second paragraph.

Nope... Dehumanizing people and feeding tribalism with fear have been scientifically proven to incite violent behaviour

Here is one of the many books on the subject (the one I happened to have read)

Also, I am not trying to "score partisan points"... I am not registered or affiliated with any political party and have very often explained how, in my personal view, all politicians are to be distrusted... It does happen I have a particularly high level of dislike of the type of rhetoric the far-right is absolutely pushing

Good for you! It's funny that what you're saying can even be understood as a joke, when reading those books should be utterly unremarkable.

BTW, since you seem to be interested in reading about evolution you should definitely check out Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne. It's the single best popular book I've read on evolution -- clear and well-written, and really makes the case in an irrefutable way. It's worthwhile on its own, but if you're dealing with skeptics it'll also give you plenty of ammunition.

Robert Sapolsky's new book Behave shits on Peterson's new book. Robert's book is probably the best book I've bought in my entire life. Seriously, I open it and learn something new everyday. If Robert and Jordan ever "debated" I guarantee that Robert would make Jordan look like Kathy Newman.

I read,”Why Evolution Is True “ by Jerry Coyne.

It’s an easy read and lays out an argument that I can’t find flaw with.

Only the most obtuse could peruse this scientific aggregate and still try to deny the age of the earth and evolution.

This is still a somewhat helpful field guide for East Coasters, but you might also be interested in the National Audubon Society Mushroom Field Guide, which covers all of North America.

Anyone who enjoyed this talk will be delighted to hear that Cordelia has a book out called Delusions of Gender, which is excellent and, redundantly, has made a lot of men very upset.

In Sapolsky's new book Behave, Robert talks about hormones and how much of what we think of serotonin and testosterone is misleading. It is contradictory to what Jordan thinks or argues.

For example, many people think increasing testosterone leads to increasing aggression. This is false. Increasing testosterone leads to behavior that is needed to maintain your place in the social-hierarchy, regardless of if it's violence, empathy, etc. This means that if your society rewards pacifism, you rise up the social hierarchy because of your generosity. Increasing testosterone will increase your altruism, not aggression. Give a community of pacifist monks a shot of testosterone and you will have them running around trying to out-do each other by being the nicest monk in the community.

This is antithetical to Jordan's view that social hierarchy is inevitable and a product of human nature. Since humans have historically fought nature, having the strength to overcome and master nature was the historical modus operandi. However, since we have now evolved as a species with urbanization, the industrial revolution, and the division of labor, our battle is no longer against nature, but against ourselves. Therefore, we are no longer in a battle for dominance against nature, but against ourselves, which does not need to happen anymore if we as a species decided we would no longer reward dominant, aggressive, social-hierarchy-enhancing behavior.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594205078/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_KF84ZA0W1MCP8D7AGQ7E

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679763996/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_P9W9MW7NRHAJ0ZBVZH7W

Some light reading for you. You can feel however you wish.

This atheist thinks free will is a vague term that serves as a poor, outdated model of human behavior that is not only poorly defined (what is the will? how is it separated from non-will? from what exactly is it free?), but it defies certain known facts, such as the brain prepares for action before a person decides what action to take.

Biology explains explain behavior, even complex human behaviors. Dr. Robert Sapolsky provides a magnificent resource explaining this for the average non-scientist: Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Ofc here you go: https://www.amazon.com/Behave-Biology-Humans-Best-Worst/dp/1594205078

It’s a big fucking book, but so so worth it to understand why we do, think and act the way we do.

There’s a summaryBehave (a summary) I found too if you want to read that first to get a sense of the book

A list of pictures is not enough. You need a comprehensive resource that will also tell you which ones have no inedible lookalikes and how the inedible lookalikes differ if they do exist.

The closest thing to what you are looking for is probably this. And, even then, go out with an experienced mushroom hunter the first few hundred times.

Mushrooms of the Northeast is my go to field guide for New England. I take that little book on every hike. At home I keep the National Audubon Society Guide. The Audubon Guide is a bit more in depth and has a lot more species listed. Just be cautious because the more extensive guide is not focused on New England.

That is an excellent question.

You might like to look up this excellent book on the topic: https://www.amazon.com/Red-Queen-Evolution-Human-Nature/dp/0060556579

Three seconds of Google:

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness-Fragility/dp/081297381X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Black+swan&qid=1619491750&sr=8-1

Black Swan Nassim Nicholas Talib

I really truly found the coloring books helpful: https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Coloring-Book-Wynn-Kapit/dp/0321832019/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1516157744&sr=8-1&keywords=anatomy+coloring+book

However, dont fall for the trap I did and buy it all,

Flash cards from amazon - not helpful

Physiology coloring book - not helpful

Natural selection is not defined as "survival of the fittest," that's just a colloquialism to help people understand the basic idea. The basic idea is that there is some process by which organisms who are more fit than others will reproduce more often, outcompeting those who are less fit. Natural selection is simply the mechanism that takes genetic mutation and environmental conditions and outputs organisms that succeed. It also outputs organisms that don't, hence the idea of 'out competing.'

I'm on mobile, so here's an ugly link to a good definition and high level overview:

https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_25

The phrase "survival of the fittest" reduces the idea down by trimming away the details to make a nice, intuitive catch phrase. However, that loss of information does lead people to misunderstand what natural selection really is.

As for your link, I'll respond with one of my own, if you're interested. I'm not an expert and don't keep the details of evolution handy. The book "Why Evolution is True" by Jerry Coyne goes into great detail about why the Theory of Evolution does make predictions and that those predictions are testable and verifiable. That will suffice as my rebuttal to Dr. Henry Peters' forced "tautology." After all, wouldn't you rather hear it from an expert than some internet stranger?

There are plenty of other books like Dr. Coyne's that would do just as well, however. I was able to check out his book for free at my local library, but here is the Amazon link ($14), so you have the details:

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-Coyne/dp/0143116649

This is the kind of question that evolutionary psychology tries to answer, successfully or not. Old man sapolsky gives it discussion, for another resource; see https://youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA and https://www.amazon.com/Behave-Biology-Humans-Best-Worst/dp/1594205078

Interesting to note is that, from a game theoretic perspective, in the context of human society multiple "natural" parenting styles could coexist in a stable state. Human young require lots of investment from at least the mother. In a world where all fathers abandon their children immediately, though, a father who instead stays around and cares for the child can give that child an advantage, making it advantageous behaviour. In the opposite setting, though, where all fathers invest heavily, a sneaky father could "cheat" and insert his young into a setting where it will then be cared for and raised by someone else, while he continues on to mate elsewhere, also advantageous. thus you could maybe expect a stable state somewhere in the middle, a mix of investors and cheaters. Human behaviour is more complicated in practice, of course, with cultural influences etc, but.

I think free will is an outmoded and unreliable explanation for human behavior. We know for example thatthe brain prepares for specific behaviors before the subject decides on that behavior. The "will" is a poor explanation for our behavior, free or not. Behavior is explained far more elegantly through science.

For more information I would look into Robert Sapolsky, an endocrinologist out of Stanford University. His latest work is a fantastic summary of what we know about human behavior, and how we know it (Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst).

Integrating the right hemisphere is the way. Music is the simplest…memory palace is another option.

This is a great book that goes over the latter.

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143120530/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_DFTSKV40W19561PP8FS4

This one was the one I had while in school, and it seems like they still sell it all these years later. Great drawings, not overly complex, easy to color and it really helped me with my basics at the time.

Repetition is the thing that helped me the most for anatomy. Flashcards are a great way to do that. If you find it helpful to see the anatomy all together I recommend getting an anatomy coloring book. I used this anatomy coloring book.

I don't know if it counts as self-help, it's about improving your memory: Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything.

r/shroomid

Edit: I also have the National Audubon Society Field Guide to Mushrooms which has almost 1000 pages of how to ID specific mushrooms with pictures. I think it’s on Amazon :) happy hunting!

National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms (National Audubon Society Field Guides) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0394519922/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_8xXOFb7VDBG94?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

You might want to take a look at Why Evolution Is True by evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne. It's an entertaining, clear, well-written overview--the single best book I've read on the topic of evolution (and in the running for the best popular science book I've read, period). Based on the Amazon reviews of Mayr's book it sounds like Coyne's is the better and more approachable book.

If you’re interested in learning more about some possible causes of this I would highly recommend reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Black Swan. It is an amazing book discussing how these once in a lifetime events (black swans) are much more common because of modern business and economic practices, and how the probability of these events are drastically under predicted because of incorrect assumptions made by modern economists and statisticians. Truly an insightful book.

Amazon link to the book (~$12 USD)

I can totally relate! I've actually been eyeing this anatomy one here! I'll probably start off with crayola and maybe venture off to the prisma ones later on.

This is the one I use. It’s pretty complete and not too expensive.

National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms (National Audubon Society Field Guides) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0394519922/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_kWQQBbB92MYGP

Read Moonwalking with Einstein. It covers how to practice improving your short term memory. It will take time and work, but you can make it better.

Have you gotten the Anatomy Coloring Book too? It sounds like it would be something you'd enjoy; it's both fun to color and very helpful for learning different systems. Here's a link to it on Amazon.