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sixes_and_sevens comments on Open thread, September 22-28, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: Gunnar_Zarncke 22 September 2014 05:59AM

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Comment author: sixes_and_sevens 22 September 2014 03:02:44PM 4 points [-]

If you like visuals, Crash Course has an entertaining and informative Biology playlist which includes a subset on human biology. I would imagine any undergrad (or possibly even high school) introductory text would also revise major organ systems to the level you describe.

Do you have any specific purpose or goal in mind?

Comment author: pinyaka 22 September 2014 03:36:28PM 3 points [-]

I have two primary motivations. First, I'd like to have a better context for understanding new medical treatments that I hear about. Second, I'd like to know enough about basic human biology that my first response when someone tells me about a medical problem they're having is sympathy rather than a desire to learn what that part of the body does (my curiosity is usually followed by frustration when the person who is complaining of some organ failing doesn't even know what the organ is supposed to do when healthy and frustration is a particularly bad response). So, I guess my interest is more about understanding how anatomy relates to health.

The link you provided looks good for learning basic biology, but I got most of that stuff in my basic biology class in college. I will check out the ones that look oriented towards human biology though. I was hoping for something shorter than a text book, although a good text book recommendation wouldn't go amiss either.

Comment author: sixes_and_sevens 22 September 2014 05:24:21PM 3 points [-]

A quick Google threw this up, though I can't attest to the merits of any of them. I'm tempted by the last one myself.

(I am currently very slowly working my way through an undergrad human biology syllabus comprising four fairly weighty institution-specific textbooks. It's quite possible I'll never finish them.)