Biology/Natural Science Biographies - can you help my DD?

[TraceyS/FL]

My oldest just asked me if we had any biographies on "biology" scientists. 

Um, no, that would apparently be a lacking area in the ole home library!

She has to read and then write a couple of essays on 1-2 of them (i gather - it is like pulling teeth to get the assignment out of her, it is her FLVS Biology class). I tried doing a search on "science biographies" and struck out overall.

This is the list she sent me of her choices:

Carolus Linnaeus Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Georges Cuvier James Hutton Erasmus Darwin Charles Lyell Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck Charles Darwin Alfred Russel Wallace Gregor Mendel Alfred Wegener Watson and Crick Stephen Jay Gould

 

She said she found a big list on Amazon, and then our library has some... she just doesn't know if they are credible ones to use to cite.

Can anyone give me a direction to point her? I'm trying to look at my 1st Edition WTM, and just gave her our DK Great Scientists book to peruse.... but biology isn't my thing.

 

Thanks!!
 

[albeto.]

How old is she? 

 

Is biology of interest to her, and if so, what fields?

 

Is this something she has to punch through for credit?

 

Is she interested in adventure or historical importance?

 

When my biologist-who-has-grand-adventures comes back home, I'll ask him. If your daughter is looking for someone who made a big splash (like Linnaeus, Darwin, Mendel, etc), there are lots to choose from, depending on her interests. 

[Jen in NY]

Rachel Carson 'springs' to mind.... (get it? lol)

 

She really did lead an interesting life though, despite my awful punning.

 

Oh... duh... I see she has assigned choices. Oh, Well.

[Anacharsis]

Charles Darwin wrote a biography on his grandfather Erasmus called The Life of Erasmus Darwin. I think there is also a published collection of Erasmus Darwin's letters.

 

Charles Darwin wrote some autobiographical fragments about his early life, and a more complete autobiography of his later life. His granddaughter Nora Barlow published them in 1958 as The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882.

 

Alfred Russel Wallace wrote an autobiography called My Life: A Record of Events and Opinions.

 

What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery by Francis Crick is written like a memoir.

 

James Watson wrote three that might qualify, The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, Genes, Girls, and Gamow: After the Double Helix,  and Avoid Boring People and Other Lessons from a Life in Science.

[TiaTia]

Walking with the Great Apes, by Sy Montgomery

The Leakeys, by Mary Bowman-Kruhm

Louis Agassiz: Creator of American Science, by Christophe Irmscher

 

 

[PeterPan]

Well I'll be snarky for one minute and suggest you tell her to find the WOMAN behind those men and their experiments and then find the book on HER.  ;)  But that would rattle her world, so we won't.  For instance, here  Rosalind Franklin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia  That's the woman behind Watson & Crick.  Apparently she did the work and they got the glory.  There are more stories like this.

[raptor_dad]

I would want to know more about the assignments. If she knows the essay topics that would help select good pairs. I would bet an essay will be of the compare and contrast format between the 2. All these scientists are in the taxonomy/evolution/genetics strand of biology. So the latter ones extend, explain, and modify the former.

 

For instance:

 

Linnaeus/Darwin: Here you have the father of taxonomy who is grouping related species and the Darwin who explains the evolutionary processes that generate these related species

 

Mendel/Watson & Crick: Mendel demonstrates the genetic transmission of traits and Watson/Crick find the carrier of these traits, DNA, and establishs the central dogma.

 

Lemarc/Darwin: This essay would be on competing views of the evolutionary process

 

So absent any particular interest in a given scientist, I would choose pairs based on the essay topics. Some will be easier to compare than others.

 

[LNC]

We collected all of the Messner scientist biographies. They are all oop.

 

http://www.valerieslivinglibrary.com/messner.htm

[flyingiguana]

Rosalind Franklin biographies:

http://www.amazon.com/Rosalind-Franklin-DNA-Anne-Sayre/dp/0393320448

http://www.amazon.com/Rosalind-Franklin-The-Dark-Lady/dp/0060985089

 

I know I've read one of these, I just can't remember which one. 

 

I tried reading The Double Helix.  Frankly, I just couldn't get through it.  It wasn't riveting in the least, and the explanations of the biology left me wondering if he actually understood any biology at all.

 

A very short biography of Gould:

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/biography.html

(Full disclosure: I'm also in the camp that wonders what the heck the big deal was about punctuated equilibrium -- except that he and Eldredge came up with a name for what everyone already knew)

 

If she's able to step away from biographies, The Future of Life by E.O. Wilson is supposed to be good.

 

And there's a good biography of Darwin on video: Darwin's Dangerous Idea.  But that's not a book.

(The book by the same name by Daniel Dennett is a totally different beast)

[raptor_dad]

Since we have mentioned Gould and E O Wilson, why not add in the third great evolution&ecology professor from Harvard, Ernst Mayr. It is always amazing  to me that Harvard had all three of them in the same for department for decades. Just think if they had managed to recruit Bob Payne away from Washington in their many attempts in the 70s, 80, or 90s.