David and Ilona Barash are concerned that many people don’t know their DNA and RNA from their ABCs. So in a somewhat unusual literary and scientific collaboration—the Barashes are father and daughter—they set out to promote what they call biological literacy or bioliteracy. The result of their efforts is a new book, The Mammal in the Mirror, Understanding Our Place in the Natural World.

	UW Professor David Barash and his co-author, daughter Ilona Barash.

The Barashes have put together a primer that explores and explains the biological world and the vast strides that science has made in recent years in understanding biology. “The book is about our place in the natural world and shows how everything ties together and how we fit into it,” says Ilona Barash, a UW alumna who is now in the MD/PhD program at the University of California, San Diego.

Adds David Barash, UW professor of psychology, “I would hope that people get a sense of the excitement of what’s going on in biology. There is nothing in the book that a typical person can’t understand. We just want people to know more about biology and that there is nothing to be afraid of. Biology is quite astounding.”

[Winter 2000 - Table of Contents]