Customer Reviews

Developmental Biology, Eighth Edition

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I used this book as a textbook for a senior-level class in Developmental Biology. Gilbert is the standard reference, and I had used his 2nd edition book years ago when I had Embryology myself. Someone else ordered the book (before I was hired) but I was relieved when I found out that it was Gilbert's text.

However, much has changed since the second edition. One bewildering aspect is that, although development arguably begins at the point of gamete fusion (fertilization), this is not covered until Chapter 7... there is half a semester's worth of material before one even gets to fertilization. This strikes me as too long; many of the concepts that precede it are really best handled afterwards (such as cell-cell signaling). I note that fertilization made its appearance in Chapter 2 of the 2nd edition, so it is not just my personal view that this is the right place to begin -- it used to be Gilbert's!

Beyond the strange choice of sequence, I found that this book focuses too much on idiosyncratic details and not enough on over-arching concepts. For instance, Gilbert spends pages upon pages describing in detail one specific cascade reaction after another, without ever really "zooming out" to generally address the importance of cascade reactions overall. In other words, he spends so much time focusing on the detailed nuances of the leaves on every tree, that he misses the forest.

My students universally despised this book, and complained that it was near impossible to follow or understand. They said that they got much more out of my lectures. But the only difference was that I spent time poring over the book (as I am not really a Developmental Biologist myself) and reading it carefully, and then making outlines of the general concepts that Gilbert was illustrating with his details. I could then present the concepts to the students, and tell them that the book has examples.

I really believe that a text book should be organized around concepts and biological processes, not the details of a thousand examples. Examples will be forgotten over time, and can be looked up in any case, but the understanding of the overall concept is what one most needs to obtain in class, and from a text book. This edition of the book is really just a compendium of examples from the literature, and not a textbook of concepts.

I know that Gilbert is a "standard" text in this field, but I am nevertheless exploring other Developmental Biology texts for next year, because this one just does not do the job that a good basic text book should do.

I'm a college student and bought this book for my developmental biology class. I thought this was a satisfactory book. I agree with the reviewer steven viscido; the book does, in fact, puts an extraordinary emphasis on details, but it does also elaborates somewhat on concepts but not to the extent that it covers on details. I don't mind if there is too much detail, but the real issue I have is that sometimes when you are reading the book, you would get "lost" in whatever topic you are reading. As an anology, its like going into a forest that has trees with branches, and focusing too much on the branches would make you unconscious of the tree and if there is too much focus on the tree you would forget that you are in the forest. A similar type of thing in this book.
It does take an extra amount of will to memorize all the details such as the proteins involved, stages, experiments, processes, etc. in every chapter. Nevertheless, I'm very much satisfied with this book, I learned a lot of wonderful things. I wanted to give this a 3.5 stars but unfortunately amazon won't let me.

This was a required text for my graduate Developmental Molecular Genetics course at UCI. This book provided sufficient background so I could keep up and understand the assigned scientific journal articles. The way the textbook reads is more for an undergraduate course but if you never had such an opportunity this will keep you up to speed for graduate coursework.
Overall the way it reads can sometimes be annoying as the author will put too many details. However, this is exactly what anyone going into graduate school should be ready for- scientific articles read the same way if not worse. As stated is a good intro to the material and will provide the tools to read journal articles.

This book is a decent developmental textbook, but it focuses too little on explanation and too much on storytelling. While this style is appropriate in group talks, it wastes time when someone is trying to learn quickly and makes it difficult to find the useful pieces of information. The only way I have been able to use this book is with a highlighter at all times.

The text could also benefit from a reorganization. It seems that in order to get a good picture of the pathways that are recurring themes in development, one has to read the book out of order, and that can be confusing.

Other than that, it is factually accurate for the most part and has a sturdy binding, so it will last. The paper it's printed on isn't too great and ink/highlighter can show through, but not too badly.

Overall this is a good introduction to developmental biology, but it is not very useful as a quick reference or for someone trying to learn a specific organism quickly.

I bought this textbook for my upper division college Developmental Biology class. I've only read the first 5 chapters of this book. I must say: the organization is pretty good, and it is fairly easy to read. I bought the loosed-leaf version at my school bookstore for $88 with tax and then returned it because Amazon is much cheaper AND this is the hardcover version. The pictures inside the book are really good and very high quality in this book. There is a summary section after every chapter, and this is helpful to brush up on the things that you just read. My professor just uses the figures for her lecture (I'm pretty sure that the company who owns this textbook allows you to buy PowerPoint versions of this book to present to students). The PowerPoint version contains all of the figures in the textbook, and my professor mainly tests us on the figures because they practically detail the entire chapter.

Pros: My favorite thing about this book is the Signaling Pathway section because not only do they provide a schematic picture of it, the textbook also has a simplified version (which is the part you will probably remember later on in life).

Cons: the book tries to add some humor. I don't think it's funny, and it doesn't help me remember. Luckily, these "opinions" are like 1 sentence every few pages, so it's not much. Maybe the humor might be enjoyable to others, this might help you remember. It didn't help me because I am really bad a reading comprehension so not much is funny to me.

i had been reading this book and is pretty good for collecting the developmental stages of different organisms. Im a researcher and for me this book is very good for those that are in the developmental biology field.

Book is good, there are a lot of materials, some are too detailed though.

Saler is good, very fast shipping.

I am a chemist and a first year medicine student. I find this book has exactly the right stuff to study embriology. It is also very actual and is written in a very logical and comfortable way.

This is an excellent textbook for undergrad or grad students who are beginner or intermediate in the field,
or a neat reference book for grad students and postdocs.

This is a great book that is very descriptive and with lots of pictures. The only problem is that it jumps around between chapeter when discussion topics. For example, in chapter 1, the basics of developmental biology are discussed and some topics are referenced as being talked about in later chapters like 5, 6, 8 and so on. These things should be defined when they are first brought up, you should not be told to look in a later chapter to find the defenition of something you are reading about.