Numerical ability is an essential skill for everyone studying the biological sciences but many students are frightened by the ?perceived? difficulty of mathematics, and are nervous about applying mathematical skills in their chosen field of study. Having taught introductory maths and statistics for many years, Alan Cann understands these challenges and just how invaluable an accessible, confidence building textbook could be to the fearful student. Unable to find a book pitched at the right level, that concentrated on why numerical skills are useful to biologists, he wrote his own. The result is Maths form Scratch for Biologists , a highly instructive, informal text that explains step by step how and why you need to tackle maths within the biological sciences.

Features:


? An accessible, jargon?busting approach to help readers master basic mathematical, statistical and data handling techniques in biology
? Numerous end of chapter problems to reinforce key concepts and encourage students to test their newly acquired skills through practise
? A handy, time?saving glossary
? A supplementary website with numerous problems and self?test exercises

Numerical ability is an essential skill for everyone studying the biological sciences, but many students are frightened by the ?perceived? difficulty of mathematics, and are nervous about applying mathematical skills in their chosen field of study. Having taught introductory maths and statistics for many years, Alan Cann understands these challenges, and is aware just how invaluable an accessible, confidence building, textbook could be to the fearful student. Unable to find a book pitched at the right level, that concentrated on why numerical skills are useful to biologists, he wrote his own. The result is Maths from Scratch for Biologists, a highly instructive, informal text that explains step by step how and why you need to tackle maths within the biological sciences.

Features:

An accessible, jargon?busting approach to help readers master basic mathematical, statistical and data handling techniques in biology.

Numerous end of chapter problems to reinforce key concepts, and encourage students to test their newly acquired skills through practise.

A handy, time saving glossary.

A supplementary website with numerous problems and self?test exercises. Essential reading for all students within the biological sciences, taking core skills and numeracy courses, and an invaluable reference for those working within academia and industry.

Alan Cann has worked in both the UK and USA, and in addition to teaching undergraduate and postgraduate biologists and medical students, he runs an active research laboratory at the University of Leicester, UK, studying the molecular biology and pathogenesis of viruses. He has been awarded numerous grants for educational research and was the inaugural winner of the Society for General Microbiology UK Wildy prize for Education in 2001.

2007-10-19 Getting there

I was attracted to this title as I am going back to study biology having left school 25 years ago. Maths was pretty unintelligable then and algebra was, and still is, an evil alien code designed to ensure that my inquisitive nature would always reach an insurmountable barrier to true understanding: at the first hint of maths.
Dr. Cann states that he goes back to first principles and here lies the only sticking point for me... my first principles are very different to his!
I have nevertheless purchased this book after borrowing it from the library since it is a great resource and has lots of examples and exercises. I intend to use it in conjunction with "Algebra for Dummies" as being a 'Dummy' I got stuck visualising and comprehending the very first examples.
Sorry Dr Al, some of us have even lower principles than you can begin to imagine!
I still recommend it as it would be churlish to criticise too much on the basis of my own failings ;)AND I love the picture on the cover...