This is a list of the Basic Concepts posts being put up by Science Bloggers and others. It will be updated and put to the top when new entries are published. If you are not a Scienceblogger, email me (see below) and let me know of your post, or someone else's.
New Today: Mark Chu-Carroll on Sets, Janet Stemwedel on Falsifiable Claims, and Zuska on The Feminist Theory of Science.
Note: this project is getting bigger than Texas - indeed, it's almost getting to West Australia scales. Any ideas for how to organise this ever-growing list? Alphabetically by subject? By field? By word count? By kickback "donation"? [I favour the last, of course]
We don't want this to be a competitor to Wikipedia, but a chatty and useful resource for folk to get into whatever they need to at the start of learning a topic. If you know of older posts of this kind, do let me know by email. My address is john-dot-s-dot-wilkins-at-gmail-dot-com (make the obvious amendments by removing dashes and dots and replacing them with ".").
Physics
Biology
- PZ Myers at Pharyngula: "Gene".
- Larry Moran at Sandwalk: "Evolution", "The Central Dogma of Molecular Biology" Larry also has two articles on genes: "What is a Gene?", and "The Richard Dawkins Definition of a Gene Is Seriously Flawed".
- John Wilkins at Evolving Thoughts: "Clade", "Fitness", "Species".
- Ask Dr Science at Discovering Biology in a Digital World: "How do you sequence a Genome? Parts I, II, III, and IV".
- Razib at Gene Expression: "8th Grade Math (Hardy Weinberg, Genetic Variance, Molecules and Phylogenies, Kin)", "Linkage Disequilibrium".
- Greg Laden at his own blog: "Gene", "The Three Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Natural Selection", "Modes of Natural Selection", and see his series "Human Evolution 1001".
- Bora Zivkovic at A Blog Around the Clock: "Biological Clock".
- Matt, at Behavioral Ecology Blog: "Anisogamy".
- Mike Dunford at The Questionable Authority: "Measuring Fitness".
- Dan, at Migrations: "Cell migration".
- Jeremy Bruno at The Voltage Gate: "Why Spiders aren't Insects, parts I, II, III, IV, and V"
Medicine
- Tara C. Smith at Aetiology: "Introduction to Microbiology and Infectious Disease"
Mathematics, Philosophy, Logic and Computer Science
- Mark Chu-Carroll at Good Math, Bad Math: "Normal Distribution", "Mean, Median and Mode" and "Standard Deviation", "Margin of Error", "Correlation (and Causation, and Random Variables), basic concepts of statistics. "Recursion", "Logic" (this one is a good intro to basic first order predicate calculus, taught to every intro to logic student), "Syntax and Semantics", "Sets".
- Jason Rosenhouse at EvolutionBlog: "Infinity and Infinite Sums", "Numbers".
- Dr Joan Bushwell at Chimpanzee Refuge: "Metric System"
- Janet Stemwedel at Adventures in Ethics and Science: "Arguments" "Falsifiable Claims".
- Echidne of the Snakes: Statistics Primer, Part 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. [Unfortunately, each post does not open in a separate window, but the whole thing is accessible from here]
- Zuska, at Thus Spake Zuska: "The Feminist Theory of Science".
In each case, read the comments too.
Teaching resources for biology
Bora Zivkovic at A Blog Around the Clock has a series of lectures as posts that teachers may find useful, his BIO101 speed-course lecture(and lab) notes. Almost none of them cover a very narrow term or concept (some come close):
- Introduction
- Biology and the Scientific Method
- Lab 1
- Cell Structure
- Protein Synthesis: Transcription and Translation
- Cell-Cell Interactions
- Cell Division and DNA Replication
- Lab 2
- From Two Cells To Many: Cell Differentiation and Embryonic Development
- From Genes To Traits: How Genotype Affects Phenotype
- From Genes To Species: A Primer on Evolution
- What Creatures Do: Animal Behavior
- Organisms In Time and Space: Ecology
- Lab 3
- Origin of Biological Diversity
- Evolution of Biological Diversity
- Current Biological Diversity
- Lab 4
- Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology
- Physiology: Regulation and Control
- Physiology: Coordinated Response
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Comments
Larry Moran (Sandwalk)- Evolution?
Posted by: paul | January 18, 2007 10:41 PM
Actually that was harder to find than I thought. Here is the link:
http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2007/01/what-is-evolution.html
Posted by: paul | January 18, 2007 10:58 PM
My mistake. Thanks
Posted by: John Wilkins | January 18, 2007 11:11 PM
Larry also had one on the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology
Posted by: coturnix | January 19, 2007 12:53 AM
Thanks for doing this, John. It really makes the whole exercise that much more effective.
Posted by: AndyS | January 21, 2007 12:48 PM
Add Sandra Porter's stuff from yesterday (Gene) and today (DNA Cloning).
Posted by: coturnix | January 22, 2007 09:27 AM
Sorry - sequencing the genome....
Posted by: coturnix | January 22, 2007 09:29 AM
Nitpick:
The "Fields" entry belongs under Chad, not Mark.
Posted by: KeithB | January 23, 2007 06:45 PM
That's no nit! Thanks!
Posted by: John Wilkins | January 23, 2007 07:15 PM
Silly me! I read that as meaning 'The List: A Basic Concept in Science' with references to P*t*r Ny*k*s.
Posted by: Ian H Spedding FCD | January 25, 2007 08:44 AM
If you do call him from the vasty deep, he's all yours.
Posted by: John Wilkins | January 25, 2007 08:58 AM
A basic concept: Anisogamy
Posted by: Matt | January 26, 2007 04:49 PM
Basics: Biological Clock
Posted by: coturnix | January 28, 2007 04:04 AM
I can't lay hands on a post at this moment for this, but Koch's postulates. If no one has one to hand, I can write something this afternoon.
Posted by: Frederick Ross | January 28, 2007 09:40 AM
Hi John,
I found this post through Bora's post on the biological clock.
These 2 posts may be good for the collection, if you want to include links more targeted to lay readers than to scientists.
What is "It" in "Use It or Lose It"?
Brain Fitness Glossary
regards
Posted by: Alvaro | January 28, 2007 03:44 PM
"Current Biological Diversity" post from the series of BIO101 lecture notes has been since re-posted from the old blog to the new and the better URL is: http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/01/current_biological_diversity.php
Posted by: coturnix | January 29, 2007 12:40 AM
I don't know if you're accepting podcast episodes for this series, but I've got an episode on the scientific method (basic enough?) here:
http://geekcounterpoint.net/files/GC004.html
Lorne
Posted by: Lorne Ipsum | January 29, 2007 01:41 PM
Oh, heck -- and while I'm at it, here are some others:
The fossil record -- http://geekcounterpoint.net/files/GC014.html
Stem cells -- http://geekcounterpoint.net/files/GC018.html
Special relativity -- http://geekcounterpoint.net/files/GC022.html
General relativity -- http://geekcounterpoint.net/files/GC027.html
Quantum mechanics -- http://geekcounterpoint.net/files/GC033.html
Climate Change 101 -- http://geekcounterpoint.net/files/GC045.html
Lorne
Posted by: Lorne Ipsum | January 29, 2007 01:49 PM
I have noticed that Echidne's Statistics primer can be reached more easily from her website:
http://www.echidne-of-the-snakes.com/
Click on Statistics primer at the left, and you get the whole thing.
Posted by: paul | January 30, 2007 10:22 AM
I added the link, but that's a damned messy bit of formatting.
Posted by: John Wilkins | January 30, 2007 10:33 PM