Reviewing a high-school book in biology
Concepts in Modern Biology
1993. 568 pages. ISBN: 835-90522-5. Globe Book Company.
(This book is now marketed by Globe Fearon Educational Publisher,
240 Frisch Court, Paramus, New Jersey 07652. Globe Fearon is a
part of Paramount Communications, which is a part of Viacom Inc.,
one of the largest entertainment companies in the United States.)
Ugh! A Bad Apple
from the Big Apple
Terrence M. Gosliner
Concepts in Modern Biology comes to us from New York City --
the Big Apple. It is a book created by people who live in or near
the City, though it lists some "consultants" from as far away as
Albany and Ithaca, along with one fellow from Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania (i.e., the Wild West).
By itself, the fact that a book has been written by and for New
Yorkers doesn't preclude the book's being good. But Concepts in
Modern Biology suffers from rampant errors, a naive
oversimplification of concepts, and the omission of biological
information that every high-school student should learn.
The publisher has made a laudable effort to keep the book's cost
down, chiefly by limiting the number of pages and by restricting
the use of color: All the photographs are black-and-white, and the
other illustrations are printed in black or blue. However, the
pages are not used wisely, the illustrations are of low quality, and
the presentation is uninspiring. (Some of the illustrations appear
in a banal appendix titled "Review of Laboratory Skills." I was
startled to see that those skills include reading a thermometer and
measuring with a ruler, things that my son learned in the third
grade.)
It is easy to see that the writers lack familiarity with basic
principles of biology. On page 416 we read that the fossil record
indicates a "change from simple to complex forms" and a "change from
marine to land forms." Whatever "simple" and "complex" may mean,
that uninformed generalization perpetuates the myth that evolution
represents progress toward established goals. It surely doesn't
help students to understand that the evolution of various groups of
organisms has entailed a loss of specific tissues, organs or entire
organ systems -- a process that hardly seems to have made the
organisms more "complex." Similarly, the writers' statement ignores
the fact that many "land forms" have abandoned their terrestrial
existence and have returned to aquatic or marine environments.
This book repeats various other myths, including the story in which
Darwin visits the Galápagos Islands, looks at some finches, and
conceives his theory of evolution, right then and there. That is
not what happened, as I've explained before. [See Terrence M.
Gosliner's review of Mosby's Biology Today, in The
Textbook Letter for September-October 1993.]
That the writers are not familiar with evolutionary biology is
evident in many other places as well. For example:
- On page 26: "The body of an annelid suggests many roundworms
placed end to end, but there is no real information about the
relationship of the two phyla." That disregards the overwhelming
anatomical evidence linking the nematodes to other taxa (such as the
rotifers and the acanthocephalans) that have a pseudocoelom.
Annelids are related less closely to those taxa than to the mollusks
and the other animals that have a true coelom. The writers
seem to recognize this on the next page, where they state that
"since the larvae of mollusks and annelid worms are nearly
identical, these two phyla are probably closely related." The
writers had much of the correct information in hand, but they failed
to turn it into a coherent story.
- Page 27: Here the writers say that trilobites "appear to be
the ancestors of many of today's arthropods." Wrong. All
phylogenetic studies of arthropods indicate that the trilobites
were highly derived and did not give rise to any other
arthropods. (The writers are wrong again when, on page 414, they
say that "the dominant form of life in the sea [in the early
Paleozoic] was a primitive relative of the lobster, the
trilobite, which is now extinct." While trilobites were
diverse and conspicuous in the Paleozoic oceans, they were not
dominant -- the brachiopods, bryozoans and crinoids were all more
abundant than trilobites were. And describing a trilobite as a
primitive relative of a lobster is like saying that a coelacanth is
a primitive relative of a gnu.)
- Page 33: "Because most chordates have vertebrae, the term
vertebrates is loosely applied to the chordates." By whom? Not by
a biologist or by anyone else who knows that the distinction
between vertebrates and the other chordates is clear and important.
"Loosely" saying that a sea squirt is a vertebrate is like
"loosely" saying that a first-year medical student is a
neurosurgeon.
- Page 33: "Biologists believe that the first chordates were
probably similar to [the] primitive chordates of today. However,
there are no fossils to prove this." That statement makes me think
of the initials BS -- first to describe the statement itself,
and then to designate the Burgess Shale. Fossil chordates taken
from the Burgess Shale are the earliest chordates that we know, and
they do indeed resemble some of the cephalochordates that live
today.
The writers' mistaken notion about the first chordates also betrays
confusion about the processes of science. Biologists don't
"believe." They make inferences from evidence. Fossils cannot
"prove" things. They can only serve as evidence to support or
contradict a hypothesis. Much later in the book, when the writers
try to discuss science, they correctly say that science is not a
system of beliefs, and that an explanation of nature is not
scientific unless we have a way of learning whether it is false.
But the writers apparently have failed to incorporate that
information into their own thinking.
The writers' understanding of classification is dismal. On page
37, for example, they make the outrageous statement that "Some
vertebrates that are classified as mammals are so primitive that
they do not have all the characteristics of mammals." The writers
evidently hold that false notion because they don't know the
characteristics of mammals. All mammals have hair and mammary
glands, and all the animals that have hair and mammary glands are
classified as mammals. The writers are wrong in guessing that live
birth (viviparity) is a defining characteristic of mammals, they are
wrong in guessing that mammals are the only viviparous vertebrates,
and they are wrong in guessing that mammals are the only vertebrates
whose embryos are nourished by the female as they develop within her
body.
There many other misconceptions about classification. On page 10,
the writers say that "Categories of classification are known as
taxons." (No, the categories are called ranks, and the things that
get classified are known as taxa. That word taxa is the
plural of taxon. There is no word "taxons.") The writers
confuse common names with scientific ones, creating genera with
imaginary monikers such as "Planaria" instead of
Dugesia, and "Amphioxus" instead of
Branchiostoma. A table on page 21 says that dicots have
flowers whose petals and other parts occur "in fours or fives, or
their multiples." (This is true of the more highly derived dicots
but not of the primitive ones.) On page 29 horseshoe crabs are
wrongly labeled arachnids and are wrongly said to have only eight
legs. On page 31, the "bug" representing the order Hemiptera is not
a bug -- it is an earwig, a member of the order Dermaptera.
Along with its shocking collection of errors, the book shows
irresponsible omissions. The writers give a hokey rendition of how
we must save Spaceship Earth (page 491), but their space probe
misses the mark. Though they make an attempt to discuss the
dangerous growth of the human population, the book simply has no
information about how to remedy that problem. The section on human
reproduction (pages 308 through 313) doesn't have a single word
about contraception, but it gives three paragraphs to the
treatment of infertility!
On page 225, the writers say that "the cause of AIDS is not known"!
In this book, the human immunodeficiency virus doesn't exist, so the
student can learn nothing, of course, about how the virus is
transmitted or how transmission can be combatted.
Later, on page 398, genetic counseling "helps the family fully
understand all their options," but there is no explanation of what
any of those options may be.
Globe's writers obviously are appeasing people who oppose birth
control, oppose the recognition of population problems, and oppose
intelligent management of human sexuality and human reproduction.
Topics that are crucial to the lives of our kids and the health of
our planet are concealed or are dismissed with mere lip service.
Concepts in Modern Biology has more holes than all the Swiss
cheese in the Carnegie Deli, and the writers have made more errors
than the New York Mets. This book is a bad apple, rotten to the
core. Shame on you, Globe Book Company!
A Dull, Superficial Textbook,
Colored by Anthropocentrism
Claudia Luke
By the beginning of my junior year in high school I knew I wanted to
be a biologist. I was full of anticipation when I first held in my
hands a textbook devoted wholly to biology, but I was about to be
horribly disappointed. In the ensuing months I sifted through dry
text, listened to a bored instructor, did multiple-choice homework
assignments, and learned little about nature.
In its inability to engage and challenge students, Globe Book
Company's Concepts in Modern Biology rivals the ill-conceived
book from which I was force-fed during that unhappy experience.
Concepts in Modern Biology focuses on comparative anatomy and
physiology (mostly in protozoa, hydra, earthworms, grasshoppers and
humans), but it also includes chapters about chemistry, genetics,
evolution and ecology. The text provides concise, usually accurate
definitions of biological terms, and it mentions concepts taught in
many college-level biology courses, but it fails to integrate these
ideas effectively, fails to challenge students to think for
themselves, and fails to help students develop an appreciation of
nature.
Much of the text is organized around definitions. This style is not
conducive to effective learning about life, which is typified by
interactive, complex processes. The book mentions many concepts but
devotes only a little space to each, so the material often
degenerates into lists of terms and anecdotes for students to
memorize. This is particularly apparent in the section about the
diversity of life, where the anecdotal accounts of various species
are too brief to engage interest. The brevity with which many
topics are treated is accentuated by a prose style that relies on
short, sometimes simplistic sentences.
Although the text is mostly accurate as far as facts are concerned,
some glaring errors are present. For example, ectotherms
does not mean "cold-blooded animals." Peripatus is a
putative evolutionary link between the segmented worms and the
arthropods (not just the crustaceans), and Peripatus is not
extinct. Overgrazing does not turn grassland into "desert" or
desert habitat. And the jaws of snakes are not "temporarily
unhinged to swallow large prey." In its discussion of factors that
can cause changes in gene pools, the text focuses on genetic
mechanisms (recombination, crossing over, and mutation) while
neglecting other processes, such as founder events.
A few questions for the student are scattered through the text, but
most of them are irrelevant or are unsuited to the student's
abilities. (On page 28, for example, the caption under a drawing
says: "The centipede and millipede. Which moves faster?" That
does not point to any interesting biology.) The exercises at the
ends of chapters are just as bad, consisting of short-answer,
multiple-choice and complete-the-statement questions. Most of them
ask for regurgitation of facts given in the text, and few of them
promote integrative thinking.
Anthropocentric Views
Biology is a process of discovery and of developing ideas, but this
point is obscured by the book's emphasis on facts. The first
discussion of scientific theory appears near the end of the book, on
page 407, in a chapter on evolution. Earlier, there is a brief
attempt to outline "the scientific method," but the ideas are not
adequately developed.
Concepts in Modern Biology also does little to help students
appreciate nature and the value of conservation. Many species are
described in terms of their usefulness to humans: Horsetails "were
formerly used in the home as an abrasive"; earthworms "are helpful
to farmers"; grasshoppers are very destructive to crops; reptiles
"are not popular animals though many are valuable to humans"; owls
and hawks "are valuable because they eat rats and mice." These
simplistic and anthropocentric views of animals do not promote
understanding of the complex interactions among species, and they
encourage the student to regard our planet as a resource to be
exploited.
I do not recommend this book. While it may introduce the student to
some biological concepts, the text is dry and unimaginative, the
ideas are not integrated effectively, and the student's ability to
think is underestimated. Biology is a fascinating field. No
student should be required to experience it so joylessly.
Terrence M. Gosliner is a zoologist, a specialist in the biology of
marine invertebrates, and a staff scientist at the California
Academy of Sciences, in San Francisco.
Claudia Luke, a wildlife biologist and specialist in herpetology, is
one of the co-directors of the Granite Mountains Reserve (at Kelso,
California), a research-and-teaching center operated by the
University of California.
Editor's postscript
As late as 1998, Globe Fearon was still promoting and selling
Concepts in Modern Biology. The book was shown on page 98 of
Globe Fearon's 1998 catalogue, accompanied by promotional claims
that included this one: "With Concepts in Modern Biology, you
get an easy-to-use text that's been hailed both for its clarity and
comprehensive, up-to-date content." Globe Fearon did not say who
had "hailed" the book, nor did Globe Fearon explain that being
"up-to-date" meant teaching students that the cause of AIDS was unknown.
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