David Mark Hillis is an American evolutionary biologist, and the Alfred W. Roark Centennial Professor of Biology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is best known for his studies of molecular evolution, phylogeny, and vertebrate systematics. He created the popular Hillis Plot depiction of the evolutionary tree of life.
I'm being optimistic. Of course, if I don't get at least a B- in this class, it's the books fault not mine which will justify a revision of my current rating from five starts to three.
Before this book, my little exposure to biology was when I was in high school about 15 years back.
I did not read the complete book as it is too big to be finished in a year. I went through the biochemistry and genomics sections to build my background for a study of bioinformatics.
This book is great! My favourite part of this book is how it builds up a context around each concept, as in, how was it discovered, which experiments were performed to study it, and which people were involved. As you read the book, you work your way up to the present. It's a wonderful introduction to how science is done and in particular, how research in biology is done.
Good, but not perfect. Chapter 7 should be organize after Chap 16. Cell signalling can only be really appreciate after knowing about the big picture of DNA to protein.
A very good introductory text for organismal biology. Just the right amount of detail for a freshman-level course. Diagrams were occasionally very busy, making it difficult to parse.