biology

George B. Johnson

George B. Johnson is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand George B. Johnson rather than just read about it. In short: George B. Johnson (born 11 June 1942 in Newport News, Virginia) is a science educator who for many years has written a weekly column "On Science" in the St.

Key takeaways

George B. Johnson belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect George B. Johnson to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of George B. Johnson from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

George B. Johnson (born 11 June 1942 in Newport News, Virginia) is a science educator who for many years has written a weekly column "On Science" in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. For over 30 years he was a biology professor at Washington University in St. Louis and a genetics professor at Washington University School of Medicine. He has authored 44 scientific papers and ten high school and college biology texts. Over 3 million students have learned biology from these texts.

Education Johnson got his B.A. in English from Dartmouth College in 1964, and his M.A. in biology, also at Dartmouth College in 1966. He was granted his Ph.D. in population biology from Stanford University in 1972, his thesis being on genetic variation in alpine butterflies.

Academic career Johnson was hired as an assistant professor of biology in the Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis in 1972. He was a visiting research fellow at Carnegie Institution of Washington, Department of Plant Biology, Stanford, California, 1975-1976. He was promoted to associate professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis and also associate professor of genetics at their School of Medicine in 1976. He served as visiting lector, Genetisk Institute at Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark, in 1977. In 1980 he was promoted to professor of biology at Washington University, a position he held until his retirement in 2004. He was also professor of genetics at the School of Medicine from 1981 to 2004. During the years 1987 to 1990 he served as founding director of The Living World education center, St. Louis Zoo. Since 2004 he has continued at Washington University as professor emeritus of biology.

Writings

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Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with George B. Johnson

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what George B. Johnson claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to George B. Johnson before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about George B. Johnson ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of George B. Johnson

In research: George B. Johnson appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses George B. Johnson in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: George B. Johnson is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1942 births, Academic staff of Aarhus University, American geneticists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for George B. Johnson outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study George B. Johnson in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what George B. Johnson means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain George B. Johnson out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is George B. Johnson in simple terms?

George B. Johnson (born 11 June 1942 in Newport News, Virginia) is a science educator who for many years has written a weekly column "On Science" in the St.

Why does George B. Johnson matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study George B. Johnson?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on George B. Johnson.