The development of a curriculum monopoly Australian secondary schools: Biological Science: The Web of Life 2 Research and comment

Abstract

A previous paper (Lucas, 1980), described the origins and spread of Biological Science: The Web of Life, the adaptation of the American Biological Sciences Curriculum Study sponsored by the Australian Academy of Science that is now used as the basis of senior secondary school biology courses in all Australian states. This paper reviews the published comment, evaluation studies, and research studies based upon the use of the programme, and discusses the implications the existence of a monopoly curriculum has for the development of biological education in Australia.     

Indinavir resistance evolution: a comment

Dear Editor, I read the recent report on HIV with a great interest[2].Geng et al concluded that"Indinavir-resistance evolution was observed by single-genome amplification[2]"and"During the course of changing the regimen to incorporate Indinavir,the G73S mutation occurred and was combined with M46I/L90M[2]."I have some points for discussion on this work.First,focusing on the single-genome amplification,although it is acceptable the false positive can still be detected[3].     

Biological externalities and evolution: a comment

Tullock's illuminating article in this Journal (1971) uses the economic theory of externality to anlyze the natural equilibira of biological systems where species interact. He demonstrates that the natural system does not attain a Pareto optimum—that it would be possible to increase both species (in a two-species model) by appropriate management. In this comment on his paper, his analysis is shown to result from implicit restrictions on further evolution which would be relevant to the external interaction. If evolution is allowed to proceed costlessly to internalize the externality, natural processes are shown to lead to optimality. Further, the directions of future evolution may be predicted from the analysis of biological externalities. The extension of Tullock's model to analyze further evolution is shown to be analogous to certain extensions of the standard model of economic externalities.