Teaching the Trees: Lessons from the Forest
Author: Joan Maloof
In this collection of natural-history essays, biologist Joan Maloof embarks on a series of lively, fact-filled expeditions into forests of the eastern United States. Through Maloof's engaging, conversational style, each essay offers a lesson in stewardship as it explores the interwoven connections between a tree species and the animals and insects whose lives depend on it - and who, in-turn, work to ensure the tree's survival.
Publishers Weekly
Trees, the dominant life form of most undisturbed terrestrial ecosystems, get a fitting tribute in this engaging collection of eco-meditations. In each short chapter, Salisbury University naturalist Maloof profiles each familiar tree-from the mighty oak to the humble holly-in the forests near her Maryland home and explores its "magical web of relationships" with the plants, insects, birds, mammals, fungi and people who rely on it. Along the way she gently voices her environmentalist convictions, deploring the clear-cutting of mature forests and their replacement with monoculture pine plantations, urging the use of recycled paper and jousting with county officials who want to cut down a local forest for the timber proceeds (she stymies them by declaring it a "September 11th Memorial Forest" and draping the trees with tags bearing the names of the dead from Ground Zero). Lyrical overtones are provided by sprinkled-in snippets of poetry by Rilke, and illustrations by the 18th-century artist John Abbott add a lovely visual touch. The resulting mix of scientific lore and acute personal observation makes for a beguiling walk in the woods. 18 illus. (July 5) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
New interesting textbook: Casos en Dirección de Seguridad Social
More Damned Lies and Statistics - how Numbers Confuse Public Issues
Author: Joel Best
In this sequel to the acclaimed Damned Lies and Statistics, which the Boston Globe said "deserves a place next to the dictionary on every school, media, and home-office desk," Joel Best continues his straightforward, lively, and humorous account of how statistics are produced, used, and misused by everyone from researchers to journalists. Underlining the importance of critical thinking in all matters numerical, Best illustrates his points with examples of good and bad statistics about such contemporary concerns as school shootings, fatal hospital errors, bullying, teen suicides, deaths at the World Trade Center, college ratings, the risks of divorce, racial profiling, and fatalities caused by falling coconuts. More Damned Lies and Statistics encourages all of us to think in a more sophisticated and skeptical manner about how statistics are used to promote causes, create fear, and advance particular points of view.
Best identifies different sorts of numbers that shape how we think about public issues: missing numbers are relevant but overlooked; confusing numbers bewilder when they should inform; scary numbers play to our fears about the present and the future; authoritative numbers demand respect they don't deserve; magical numbers promise unrealistic, simple solutions to complex problems; and contentious numbers become the focus of data duels and stat wars. The author's use of pertinent, socially important examples documents the life-altering consequences of understanding or misunderstanding statistical information. He demystifies statistical measures by explaining in straightforward prose how decisions are made about what to count and what not to count, what assumptions getmade, and which figures are brought to our attention.
Best identifies different sorts of numbers that shape how we think about public issues. Entertaining, enlightening, and very timely, this book offers a basis for critical thinking about the numbers we encounter and a reminder that when it comes to the news, people count--in more ways than one.
Table of Contents:
| Preface : people count | ||
| 1 | Missing numbers | 1 |
| 2 | Confusing numbers | 26 |
| 3 | Scary numbers | 63 |
| 4 | Authoritative numbers | 91 |
| 5 | Magical numbers | 116 |
| 6 | Contentious numbers | 144 |
| 7 | Toward statistical literacy? | 170 |
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