Mathematics for Biosciences: From Theory to Worked Examples and Applications
By Elspeth F. Garman and Nicola Laurieri, World Scientific Publishing Europe, Ltd., 2025, 426 pp, 978-1800616080.
I always feel a bit of trepidation when asked to review a book written by someone I know. I have had some real clunkers come across my desk. The fact that I am writing this review should tell you: Mathematics for Biosciences is a good book. Being an American, some of the British colloquialisms required some thinking on my part. For example, I learned to “solve for y” rather than “make y the subject of the equation”.
The book is divided into nine chapters covering basic tools, basic algebra, graphs, basic functions, differentiation, exponential and log functions, trigonometric functions and complex numbers, integration and differential equations. Each chapter has a brief introduction, a clear explanation of the topic, and numerous real-world examples from biology, biochemistry, chemistry and medicine. Finally, exercises reinforce the subject matter. At the end of each chapter, there is an answer key.
Each chapter is well written and sufficiently detailed for an advanced high school or college student to grasp. DiffEQs were my bane as a second-year student, and the authors did a great job of simplifying a complex subject into a single, accessible chapter. The book effectively integrates the basic concepts of mathematics and the sciences, a feature often overlooked in general math texts.
There is one deficiency, especially given the nature of bioscience: a chapter on statistics. I hope the second edition will address this area. Despite this, Mathematics for Biosciences is an accessible, well-structured resource that I would confidently recommend to students and instructors alike.
Review by Joseph D. Ferrara, Ph.D.
Politicians Manipulating Statistics: How They Do It and How to Oppose Them
By Michael Billig and Cristina Marinho, Cambridge University Press, 2025, 264 pp, ISBN 978-1009488167
Politicians Manipulating Statistics: How They Do It and How to Oppose Them is straightforward. Everything you need to know about the subject matter is in the title and subtitle. The text is skewed towards exploring the first part of the subtitle: how politicians manipulate statistics. Eight of the book’s eleven chapters are dedicated to detailing specific examples, particularly in recent history, of political figures manipulating statistics or using statistics in a manipulative way to misrepresent information and further their own political agenda. The other three chapters comprise an introduction to the work, a brief history of the field of statistics, and a final commentary on the subtitle’s second part, which is how to oppose politicians who manipulate statistics.
To be fair to the authors, it’s easy to find clear-cut examples of political figures, especially in recent history, who have used and abused statistics for political gain or to cover up political losses. Finding clear-cut examples of successful opposition to this kind of broad scope statistical manipulation is much trickier. As the authors themselves declare in the final chapter, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the problem, which is why political figures tend to manipulate statistics. It’s easy to lie when it’s hard to get caught.
Politicians Manipulating Statistics: How They Do It and How to Oppose Them is an academic book and written like a doctoral dissertation. The proliferation of footnotes might be off-putting to a casual reader. However, it is hard to imagine a casual reader of a book with a title like Politicians Manipulating Statistics: How They Do It and How to Oppose Them. It’s a worthwhile read in our current sociopolitical times.
Review by Jeanette S. Ferrara, MFA
