M A U R A C.

F L A N N E R Y , DEPARTMENT EDITOR

s Ive mentioned here before, I am interested in the visual aspects of biology, the most visual
of the sciences. I am particularly attracted to the cellular and molecular worlds and how images of these levels of organization can help students understand what
is invisible to the naked eye. Because of this background, Ive been trying to learn more about the field
called visual literacy. Like all the literacies, from
information lit to science lit, visual literacy is not easy
to define and means different things to different people. One of the best, and briefest, analyses Ive seen is
that on the Literacy in the Digital Age Web site (part
of the North Central Regional Education Laboratory,
funded by the US Department of Education
http://www.ncrel.org/engauge/skills/skills.htm). The
literacies described here include science literacy, but I
want to just concentrate on the concept of visual literacy and what it can mean to biology teachers
(http://www.ncrel.org/engauge/skills/vislit.htm).

On this Web site, visual literacy is defined as the

ability to interpret, use, appreciate, and create images
and video using both conventional and 21st century
media in ways that advance thinking, decision making, communication, and learning. That is a tall order,
and while it emphasizes technology, a great deal of
what it says relates to images of all kinds. In the past,
Ive written about cell imaging (Flannery, 2005), and
when I think of the visual I often think about imaging
something, an organism or a part of an organism at
MAURA C. FLANNERY is Professor of Biology and Director of the
Center for Teaching and Learning at St. Johns University,
Jamaica, NY 11439; e-mail: flannerm@stjohns.edu. She earned
a B.S. in biology from Marymount Manhattan College; an
M.S., also in biology, from Boston College; and a Ph.D. in science education from New York University. Her major interests
are in communicating science to the nonscientist and in the relationship between biology and art.

B I O L O G Y T O D AY

thinking in pictures

some organizational level from the macroscopic to the

molecular. But this definition of visual literacy involves
images of all kinds, not only images of objects, but
images of ideas. And while images of cells and molecules may seem very abstract to students, they are still
grounded in the physical world in a way charts and
diagrams arent.

High-Tech
It is this more abstract world that I want to
explore here, and I want to divide it into two parts, the
high-tech and the low-tech. In a recent article on
Visual Literacy in Higher Education, Ron Bleed
emphasizes the high-tech end, noting the importance
of blogs, digital images, and video to 21st century
learning (http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetail
Page/666?ID=ELI4001). There are indeed exciting
things happening in the high-tech world called information visualization, that Chaomei Chen (2002)
defines as a computer-aided process that aims to
reveal insights into an abstract phenomenon by transforming abstract data into visual-spatial forms (p. 1).
There are many interesting examples of such visualization. Declan Butler (2004) writes of efforts to create a three-dimension noise map of Paris (www.
paris.fr/FR/Environnement/bruit). Decibel levels are
represented as different colors, with deep blue being
the noisiest followed by red, yellow, and green in order
of decreasing decibels. This simulation, that visualizes
how noise levels decrease by moving into side streets,
is fascinating and will be useful in designing noiseabatement programs, but it requires massive computer power. Then there is the Google Earth virtual globe
which displays complex visualizations of many kinds
of geographic data and promises to provide more and
more information in the future (http://earth.
google.com/). In addition there are many forms of

BIOLOGY TODAY

299

Global Information System (GIS) software that have

become essential to ecological and environmental research
and teaching.
There seem to be two issues here in terms of helping
students to deal with these visual technologies. One is to
aid them in mastering software so they can use it in dealing
with data, either from available data sets or data they have
collected. This can be a massive undertaking and the
teachers main problem seems to be reining-in the technology to make the task manageable for students. Much of this
software has tremendous capabilities, but with all this
power often comes a very steep learning curve (a term I
have come to loathe as I find myself slipping further and
further down rather than ever reaching the top). We have
so much biology content to teach that its difficult to add
software education to the burden we place on ourselves
and on our students. Still, its good to know that such possibilities exist and to provide them as challenges to students who easily master basic course material.
The other issue it that its good for students to be
aware of the kinds of information-visualization resources
becoming available in biology, even if they dont have
hands-on experience with it. This is the biology of the
future, and they are the ones who will have to deal with it
either as users, or as consumers of the findings of others.
Twenty years ago, molecular modeling software was in its
infancy. It was impressive but difficult to master and clumsy to use. Now we have a treasure trove of 3D images of proteins available to all on the Web (http://www.
ncbi.nih.gov/). Not only are there thousands of different
protein structures available, not only are they in color, not
only can they be viewed in several different versions from
space-filling to stick models, but these can also be manipulated, that is turned in all directions. All this can be done
even by those who are learning-curve phobic. Someday the
complex visualization software of today will be as easily
accessible, so its good for students to at least know that
such initiatives are in the works.

Genetics
Obviously, genetics is one of the fastest moving fields
in biology right now, and present-day genetic research just
wouldnt be possible without computers and visualization
technology. As Felice Frankel (2004) notes: We are drowning in datamore and more information flowing from each
new device or technique invented to measure something
important in the world. How do we sift knowledge from
this explosion of data, which screams for the clarity that
visual representation might provide? (p. 173). While
Frankel was making a general comment, the example she
went on to describe comes from genetics. She discusses the
work of Ben Fry on visualizing information about the
human genome. Fry has created a clever way of representing what is known about chromosomes. It is somewhat difficult to describe this visual in wordsafter all, thats what
makes such visualizations so important, but a presentation

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THE AMERICAN BIOLOGY TEACHER, VOLUME 68, NO. 5, MAY 2006

of his project is available at http://acg.media.mit.edu/

people/fry/chromosomes/13-icp/. For each human chromosome, Fry has created a two-dimensional projection of a
three-dimensional system of see-through boxes lined up
next to each other to represent the DNA sequence of the
chromosome. The size of each box is proportional to the
length of the sequence it symbolizes. The system is colorcoded: blue for regions of known function and yellow for
the unknown. Opaque blue boxes within the see-through
blue boxes represent sequences that are translated into protein. Even a quick glance at one of these chromosomes
makes it clear that the sequences coding for proteins represent a small part of the total sequences and also that
there are a lot of yellow boxes, representing the non-coding
sequences that used to be called junk DNA. I have never
seen any presentation of a chromosome quite like this, and
I think its great. However, it takes some time to appreciate
the wealth of information it provides, time to ask questions,
and relate color and form to the ideas they represent. This
is the norm for the world of information visualization, and
its a world that students have to learn to navigate.
And there is a great deal to navigate. Many experiments
now yield tremendous amounts of data dealing with several variables, and then the question becomes how do these
variables relate to each other. It is easy to graph the relationship between two variables, but it is much more difficult
to decipher correlations as the number of variables increases. This is where visual data mining can help. There are
software programs that will display relationships among
seven or more variables as different colors, highlighting
where the correlations are significant. An even more visually sophisticated technique is the use of microchips loaded
with thousands of DNA fragments that can identify which
genes are active in a particular sample. These are great for
gene expression studies both in research and also to monitor the progression of diseases such as cancer.
At the very zenith of visual sophistication in genetics
right now is CAVE, a computer-assisted visual environment
(Ball, 2002). This is a three-dimensional virtual environment that displays huge quantities of interconnected
genomic data all at once. With special goggles, a researcher
can experience projections of gene relationships displayed
in 3D and can walk around among the genes, click on one
with a hand-held device, and see how its expression is related to that of other genes. This is much more than a visual
experience; it is a wonderful way to not only see data but
move around in it. A system this powerful must be backed
up by a supercomputer, so its costly, but its a effective tool
for researchers hunting for disease-related genes that may
be targets for new drugs and other interventions
(Bohannon, 2002). The same technology can be used to
create three-dimensional trees of evolutionary relationships
as well, bringing into a new realm the more traditional twodimensional phylogenetic trees.
Even if students never use complex visualization software, they have to be able to interpret the images such soft-

ware produces, because this is the only way to digest the

complex data that they will be bombarded with in the
future. You probably dont have time to teach them about
GIS and chromosome imaging, but it would be good if you
could guide them through some of these images, just to
give them a taste of the kinds of questions they have to ask
themselves if they are to understand such visualizations: Is
there a color code and if so, what is it; is this a two or three
dimensional representationor some higher dimension
and what do these dimensions stand for; are there quantitative measures presented and if so, how? Most of all, its
important to help students understand that such representations are not going to yield their mysteries without a lot
of thought. They have to get over their assumption that
images are easy. We have to get over this assumption as
well, because it has led many of us, as teachers, to spend
less time with our students on analysis of images than we
should.

Low-Tech
While its obvious that high-tech images require a
great deal of analysis and patience in order to be appreciated, its less so for more traditional forms of data presentation. A table or a 2-axis graph or a pie chart is selfexplanatoryor is it? While many of us are amazed and
enchanted by the exciting new world of information visualizationas it is defined in terms of sophisticated technologywe still have to deal with the mundane. The Punnett
square still comes in handy, to say nothing of simple
tables. These look so uncomplicated compared to virtualreality environments accessed with special goggles that its
easy to take them for granted and assume students can
understand them at a glance. And its not just teachers who
think this way, so do students. These visuals are so dull
they must be obvious! But are they? When I came across
Marilla Svinickis (2005) article, Vision, Visuals,
Visualizations: Learning at Many Levels, I assumed it was
going to deal with complex, high tech visualizations and
computer-generated images, but instead she focuses on
tables, and very simple tables at that, with just three or four
rows and columns. Since it would seem that even the mentally slow could deal with these visuals, why is she concentrating on them? Her reasoning is that such visuals are
powerful, but require care in their use, because they can
serve each of the four roles of vision in learning: information, organization, conjuration, and inspiration.
I was at a meeting recently where we discussed, for the
thousandth time, the pros and cons of three course management software programs. The difference this time was
that one of the participants had taken the time to create a
table displaying information on the features of each, thus
putting into practice the first role of vision in learning. We
could see, really see, for the first time, just how these programs stacked up against each other. I cant say that it
silenced debate, but it did take the discussion to a different
and more reasoned level. But before the discussion began,

we all took a few minutes to study the table. Yes, it was

clear, but still it required some attention, and since we are
all academics with years of experience with the table format, we didnt need anyone to tell us to read down the
columns and across the rows. But if we had been presenting this to a class of undergraduates, it might have taken a
little prompting to get them to see the picture as clearly as
we did.
Svinicki explains why such organization of data into a
table is important to learning: Visuals are particularly useful for teaching because they invite, indeed demand, relational learning. An important support for learning is organization of information. The mind stores information as a
network of relationships. The better organized the network, the easier it is for the learner to retrieve the information (p. 1-2). Of course, a table isnt the only way to organize information; concept maps, flow charts, and graphs all
serve this purpose, with different techniques lending themselves to different types of information. I find myself often
drawing timelines on the board when I am teaching evolution, sometimes to look at the whole history of life on
earth, and sometimes to zero in on a particular segment
related to the history of some organism group such as trilobites or dinosaurs or humans. In any of these cases, a timeline makes the historical nature of evolution more obvious,
and I happen to like the simplicity of a line drawn on the
board. There are a number of sophisticated and even visually stunning evolutionary timelines available on the Web
(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/change/deeptime/
index.html; http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/help/time
formold.html; http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/perm
anent/fossilhalls). They are great if you have time to really
study them, but for a fast visual organizer, a line on the
board cant be beat.

Thinking in Images
Svinickis third role for the visual in learning is conjuration, meaning the ability of an image to provide, or conjure up, more information than is in the image itself. In
other words, it can remind us of other things, again pointing to and solidifying relationships among pieces of information. Conjuring can also involve the emotional; as when
brightly colored charts seem more alluring than plain
black and white ones; or phylogenetic trees that picture
organisms seem more friendly than those that just list
names. Negative responses can be elicited from a table that
seems too elaborate, so complex that its hard for the viewer to know where to begin.
This is something we have to teach students: How to
begin to decipher a visual. They also have to be aided in the
questions to ask about format and content. The longer I
teach, the more I become aware of what it means to have
taught a long time, namely that it is very easy to take
knowledge for granted. Just because Ive known something
for ages, doesnt mean it is self-explanatory. In fact, I realize more and more that there is very little that is self-

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301

explanatory. Teachers are always complaining that students dont know this, and they dont know that. I, too, get
very frustrated, especially when I think Ive covered something adequately, but student questions and answers indicate that not much has gotten through. My antidote to this
frustration is to think back to my own student days. I can
remember getting a 60 on a chemistry test where I thought
I knew the material, and a biology class where we were all
so clueless that the professor taught a lesson all over again.
Can todays students be much worse than that?
So my message is one of patience, and a reminder that
everything in teaching takes workand a great deal of
thought. I am convinced that visuals help, but only if we
guide students in deciphering them. We have to teach students how to master biology and also how to think. As
Svinicki notes, diagrams and other visual presentations of
information can help students to think more clearlyand
we have to remind students of this. We have to let them
know that there is a reason that we use the board so much
and show so many slides, or overheads, or computer presentations.
Svinicki mentions concept maps as one very useful
form of visual organizer and there is a great book on how
to use concept maps in teaching biology (Fisher,
Wandersee & Moody, 2000). I dont particularly like these
maps, perhaps because most of my education was in the
days before they became popular. However, when I use
concept maps I am always pleased with the results, both in
working through relationships among ideas with students
and in thinking through a problem for myself. Svinickis
fourth use for visual tools in teaching is as inspiration, and
thats where I find concept maps most helpful: in discovering relationships among ideas that just hadnt dawned
on me.
Svinicki uses the example of a generative organizer, a
table with many blank spaces where students can fill in, to
show how the elements in the table relate to each other. I
have to admit that I hadnt thought of using a table in this
way. To me, a table is a means for presenting information,
not for eliciting ideas, but why not use them in this way?
This can help students put information into context and
also do some higher-order thinking about that information: to analyze, compare, relate, and synthesize. Again,
concept maps are particularly useful in this regard because
they can be used to show how smaller ideas fit under more
general ones.

Maps
Geographic maps are also wonderful ways to present
information visually, and we definitely take them for grantedfrom the weather maps we see on TV to the travel
maps we have in our cars. But think about all the ecological, environmental, and evolutionary data that biologists
present on maps. Patrick Maynard (2005) discusses how
critical simplification is to the clarity of maps, using of the

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THE AMERICAN BIOLOGY TEACHER, VOLUME 68, NO. 5, MAY 2006

London Underground map as an example. He notes that

distances between stations are not represented proportionately in the interests of space, but the relative positions
of the stations on a line are. In other words, a great deal of
thought went into deciding which aspects of the system
had to be represented and which could be sacrificed to
make the map readily understandable. Color coding was
an important component as it is in images of molecules,
where different colors representing different elements.
There are a number of good books on mapping, but a
fun one is You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other
Maps of the Imagination by Katharine Harmon (2004). As
the title implies, there are a great many quirky maps presented herefrom maps of the emotional landscape to personal representations of geopolitics. These images made
me think about what precisely a map is and how we use
themand how we can use them more effectively in our
teaching. A book that further spurred my thinking along
these lines is Jennifer News (2005) Drawing from Life: The
Journal as Art. She presents sample pages from dozens of
peoples journals, all with images as well as writing. Ive
used journal writing in my classes, but I hadnt thought to
urge students to use drawings in them. However, its a
great way to get visual thinkers more involved, and its pretty obvious that the most visual of the sciences deserves
more visual attention. I find that many students dont like
to draw. Most of them are out of practice and are fearful of
not doing it right. But this is all the more reason to get
them to draw, to encourage them to look more carefully at
the living world and to express ideas as images.
Besides maps, biology has another powerful visual
organizer that we tend to take for granted and that is the
tree. As Geir Hestmark (2000) notes: The tree is one of the
most powerful images in human thought (p. 911).
Evolutionary biologists would obviously agree. Here again
is a visual representation that we use all the time and often
fail to explicitly guide students through the meanings of its
lines and nodes as well as the significance of whether or
not the tree is rooted. In a comparison of three different
phylogenetic trees, Stephen Jay Gould (1988) wrote that
images offer precious insight into modes of thinking that
words often mask or ignore (p. 14). The historian of art
and science, Martin Kemp (1998) has compared two trees,
one by Ernst Haeckel and one by Louis Agassiz to illustrate
how basic thinking on the validity of evolution influenced
these diagrams. At the present time, a group of biologists
has a Web site on Tree Thinking (http://www.tree-thinking
.org/index.html) in a effort to call attention to the richness
and complexity of this visual metaphor and how we use it
in teaching. They are interested in delving into how students interpret cladograms and what these tree representations really mean to students (Baum, Smith & Donovan,
2005).
Work like this is important for all biology teachers
because it provides us with the intellectual grounding for
what we do in the classroom. We can learn from the analy-

Note: I am grateful to John Jungck for

getting me to think more deeply about
maps and Sam Donovan for bringing the
Tree-Thinking Group to my attention.

References

JOS VZQUEZ,

D E PA R T M E N T E D I TO R

AV & Software Reviews

DNA AND
PROTEIN
STRUCTURE
ACTIVITIES
Exploring DNA Structure.
2005.
CD-ROM
and
Workbook. Developed by
Sandra Porter, Geospiza Inc.
PMB 344, 2442 NW Market
St., Seattle, WA 98107. For
pricing and ordering information please contact sales
@geospiza.com, or visit
www.geospiza.com.

Ball, P. (2002). Picture this. Nature, 417, 11-13.

Baum, D., Smith, S. & Donovan, S. (2005). The
tree-thinking challenge. Science, 310, 979-980.
Bohannon, J. (2002). The human genome in 3D,
at your fingertips. Science, 298, 737.
Butler, D. (2004). Sound and vision. Nature, 427,
480-481.
Butler, D. (2006). The web-wide world. Nature,
439, 776-778.
Chen, C. (2002). Information visualization.
Information Visualization, 1, 1-4.
Fisher, K., Wandersee, J. & Moody, D. (2000).
Mapping Biology Knowledge. Boston: Kluwer.
Flannery, M. (2005). Many ways to picture a cell.
The American Biology Teacher, 67, 363-368.
Frankel, F. (2004). Sightings. American Scientist,
92, 173-175.
Gould, S.J. (1988). A tale of three pictures. Natural
History, 97(5), 14-21.
Harmon, K. (2004). You Are Here: Personal
Geographies and Other Maps of the
Imagination.
New
York:
Princeton
Architectural Press.
Hestmark, G. (2000). Temptations of the tree.
Nature, 408, 911.
Kemp, M. (1998). Haeckels hierarchies. Nature,
395, 447.
Maynard, P. (2005). Drawing Distinctions: Varieties
of Graphic Expression. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press.
New, J. (2005). Drawing from Life: The Journal as
Art. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
Svinicki, M. (2005). Vision, visuals, visualization:
Learning at many levels. The National
Teaching and Learning Forum, 14(4), 1-3.

System Requirements:
Windows
Windows 95, 98, Me, NT,
2000, XP
Open GL system library
16, 24, or 32-bit display
32 MB of RAM with virtual
memory (64 recommended)
Mac
Power PC G3, G4, G5
Mac OS X v 10.2.2-or later
32 MB of RAM (64 MB recommended)
JOS VZQUEZ teaches science in
the General Studies Program at
New York University. He has
been teaching for about 20
years and has taught every level
from elementary to graduate
school. His particular interests
are genetics/cell biology and
parasitology. Jos is also a
member
of
the
Test
Development Committee for the
National
Assessment
of
Educational Progress (The
Nations Report Card). His
address is: General Studies
Program-NYU, 726 Broadway
Ave., New York, NY 10003; email: jrv2@nyu.edu.

This recently developed

program offers a state-of-theart set of activities and tutorials targeted for undergraduate biology instruction, and
perhaps advanced high
school students. Students are
allowed to view 3D structures, manipulate those
structures, change their orientation, and perform a number of applications related to
DNA and DNA-binding protein structures. The sophisticated nature of the tutorial
allows students to learn several intrinsic properties of a
particular structure.
Along the process of
using
Exploring
DNA
Structure students can also
engage in supplementary
studies such as: understanding X-ray crystallography,
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
(NMR), and various way to
depict the molecular structure of a macromolecule. A
central point of the program
and the student manual is to
identify the major structural
features of DNA and its replication. Sufficient background
on the discovery of DNA as
the genetic material and how
it is implicated in the transmission of phenotypic traits
is also provided. For
instance, the experimental
work of Griffith, Avery and
colleagues, and Hershey and
Chase is described briefly.
There is also a table showing
each activity aligned with
National Science Education
Standards.

CLASSROOM TECHNOLOGY REVIEWS

ses of the representations and thus

become more thoughtful in their use. Few
diagrams can be simpler than a spare
cladogram, yet it gives a wealth of information and derives from a wealth of analysis. There are sophisticated computer programs that will digest information on
species characteristics and generate cladograms. So we have come full circle. We
went from the complexity of computergenerated visuals to the simplicity of small
tables and trees, and back again. I hope
that Ive made it clear that each has a place
in biology teaching and each involves
much more than meets the eye.

Finally, students are

encouraged to continue additional information about a
structure using the Internet.
The CD menu contains folders

CLASSROOM TECHNOLOGY REVIEWS

303

for the students to choose from. By

accessing Genbank students can
become familiar with the experimental technique(s) used to derive a specific structure.
Although Exploring DNA
Structure is a superior program to
help students become familiar with
structural intricacies seldom covered
in a biology course, its scope might
be limited for students with a strong
background in biology, chemistry,
and some physics. The tutorial is an
excellent starting tool for students
interested in molecular biologya
commendable effort by its developer. For those students, this program
will continuously reinforce their
notion that structure-function is a
necessary dichotomy when studying
biological molecules. Moreover, the
approach suggested by Sandra
Porter is amenable for an inquirybased laboratory format. Nonetheless, this program is a significant
milestone in the development of
instructional materials that meet
the needs of those wishing to
enhance their understanding of
biotechnology.
Jos Vzquez
General Studies Program
New York University
New York, NY 10003

B E H AV I O R A L
NEUROSCIENCE
Biology and Human Behavior: The
Neurological Origins of Individuality, 2nd Edition. 2005.
DVDs with lecture transcript and
course guidebook. Lecture Series by
Robert Sapolsky. Published by The
Teaching Company, 4151 Lafayette
Drive, Suite 100, Chantilly, VA
20151-1232. Call 1-800-TEACH-12
or visit www.teach12.com for pricing
and ordering information. Substantial discounts (up to 70% off)
are given to teachers.
In a previous review (August,
2003), I examined the first edition
of this series. Two years later,

304

Profrosser Sapolsky returns in an

extended and improved approach to
behavior and neuroscience. The
series consists of twenty-four 30minute lectures ranging from introductory neuroscience to sophisticated behavior genetics and exciting
additions to this series include:
The Evolution of Behavior
Cooperation, Competition,
and Neuroeconomics
Microevolution and
macroevolution of Genes
Behavior Genetics and prenatal Environment
Neuroethology
Neurobiology of Aggression
Hormones and Aggression
In addition, the series includes
more visualsvery clear and easy to
follow. The course guidebook
includes transcripts of all lectures,
copy masters of all the figures, lists
of additional reading, a glossary,
questions to consider, biographical
notes, and an extensive bibliography.
Lecture
12,
Cooperation,
Competition, and Neuroeconomics,
deals with how evolution selects for
competition. Sapolsky goes into
much details explaining game theory as a foundation to understand
cooperation among organisms.
Furthermore, he considers the evolution of reciprocity leading to imaging the brain during game playing
and decision making.
The
microevolution
and
macroevolution of genes are considered in lectures 13 and 14, respectively. Before elaborating on
microevolution, a recap of the structure and function of proteins is
given. Sapolsky then examines the
evolution of genes: mutations, and
the evolutionary significance of
these in hormone-receptor interactions. In terms of the macroevolution of genes, the effects of mutations on behavior are considered.
Concepts such as intron removal,
regulation of transcription factors,

THE AMERICAN BIOLOGY TEACHER, VOLUME 68, NO. 5, MAY 2006

and punctuated equilibrium are

thrown in to make a case for considering macroevolutionary changes in
gene regulation an essential aspect
of gene regulation in the brain.
A fascinating topic of the series
(Lecture 16) deals with behavior
genetics and prenatal environment,
which argues that the environment
does not begin at birth. The
endocrine and nutritional environments affect the fetus development,
leading to several implications for
further development. The lecture on
neuroethology, Lecture 19, covers
classical principles of animal behavior along with its significance in
understanding how the brain works.
The variety of questions remaining
in my head after this lecture may be
an indication of how little we know
about learning in relation to human
behavior.
Finally, evolution, aggression,
and cooperation are considered in
Lecture 23. Sapolsky discusses some
ecological correlates of aggression.
He also discusses studies done in
groups of baboons in which alternative strategies to kin selection, reciprocal altruism, and cooperation
seem successful. All in all, evidence
points to the idea that understanding aggressive behavior is far from
complete.
This lecture series is appropriate
for those (especially teachers) who
would like to refresh and/or increase
their background in behavior and
neuroscience. As an added bonus,
Profrosser Sapolsky discusses even
the most complex issues in an easyto-follow format and language. In
addition, some of the lectures are
adequate to be presented in
advanced high school biology and
undergraduate courses. The material
presented is extremely provocative
and can raise some important questions about the complexity of our
brain and the even more complex
nature of animal behavior.
Jos Vzquez
General Studies Program
New York University
New York, NY 10003