The Genesis of Germs

Thank you, seller, for sending a perfect book. I already started reading it. This came so quickly and was in perfect condition. It looks like it is new! Thank you and God's best!!! It's such a pleasure when things are better than you expect.

I purchased this for my daughter to use as part of her homeschool high school biology course. She likes it all right, but not as much as I had hoped since she wants to be a nurse and microbiology is necessary for that. I love the fact that it's a non-evolutionary, high school level science book, and my daughter says it's fairly easy to understand, unlike some other "homeschooling" texts that you need a scientist to interpret!However, there are a few minor flaws I should mention. First, we can't use the tests at the back of the book because often the test for one chapter will ask a question not answered until another chapter. Also, my daughter says the author kind of beats the reader over the head with the fact that he's approaching the topic from a Christian perspective -- can't we just have a Christian perspective without constantly talking about it? Lastly, the author makes at least one derogatory comment about the Catholic faith. Is it really necessary for one Christian group to disparage another? I thought the "enemy" was atheistic evolutionary thought, not other Christian denominations!Although I have a few pet peeves about this book as mentioned above, over all I would buy it again because it seems well-written, high school level science, fairly easy to understand without an instructor, and from a Christian perspective. The cons are mostly minor and easy to overlook. I recommend this book.

The chapter titles in this book seem to promise fascinating reading, but once you get started the reading is a bit boring. Purchased for my 9th-grade daughter as a supplement to her biology class but I'm not sure she's actually reading it. I would advise for people who are very interested in biology, but not the general crowd.

This is a very interesting book for those who have a scientific leaning. Another example of Gods creation and the curse which he placed on the earth after sin. Of course we all eagerly await the times to come when the lion shall lie down with the lamb.

Its a great study tool, if your taking microbiology!

Thank you. Very happy with purchase.

Why did God create bad things such as viruses and mosquitoes? One example Dr. Gillen covers is mosquitos. Only the females suck blood. Males, like hummingbirds, and live off of flower nectar to obtain the sugar, amino acids and many other micronutrients they require for energy. Thus they are important pollinators as bees are. Furthermore, mosquitoes are a marvelous creation and don’t kill anyone. What happens is people die when bitten by mosquitoes that themselves are infected with certain potentially deadly protozoa’s (p 58) due to mutations or viruses jumping into the wrong host. Mosquitoes also are the vector for the pathogen, a virus in this case, that caused yellow-fever. They pick up the virus that causes the disease after biting a person with Yellow-Fever because the pathogen is in the blood plasma. They thereby spread the illness to those they bite. Mosquitoes themselves become infected with some illness by first biting an infected animal, then carrying the disease over to a human victim. Malaria is spread by Anopheles mosquitoes and the Zika virus is transmitted through the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which they evidently first contracted from infected monkeys. Zika virus is a problem mostly for someone who is pregnant. It causes microcephaly and can also cause pre-term birth. Female mosquitoes require blood protein for the development of her eggs. After the female mosquito has a blood meal, the development of her eggs can be completed, and she can deposit her eggs, up to 200 at a time. Originally in the creation that God said was very good neither the pathogen existed nor were any mosquitoes infected with it or anything else. The corruption of the creation the Bible talks about caused the problem. So God did not create anything that was not very good. He is not the author of evil!

Fascinating stuff are microbes. Who knew? Having never delved into the world of microbiology much before I certainly had no idea. I mean, I did take biology and advanced biology in high school but I am sure those two semesters didn't delve much into the world of microbiology because we were too busy talking about genetics and "proving" evolution.I really appreciated this book by Gillen, and I think it will make an excellent high school text for microbiology. I love the focus on creationism and the in depth treatment of historical scientists as creation scientists who approached all their research from a biblical standpoint. Each chapter contains historical focus sub-stories with several pages of detail about the various scientists who have impacted microbiology from a Christian World View. This will make the text invaluable as my children may study texts from a decidedly evolutionary point of view once they are in college. I believe this text will work perfectly for our homeschool, but I also think it would make an excellent semester study for Christian High Schools.My bottom line? I enjoyed the book so much that I plan to look for Mr. Gillen's two other titles (Body by Design and The Human Body: Intelligent Design) and order them in the near future. I might even put them on my Christmas list!