Biology: A Hypothetico-Deductive Science

Ralph W. Lewis Ralph W. Lewis is professor emeritus at Michigan State University, Department of Natural Sciences, East Lansing, MI 48824-1031 where he taught botany, plant pathology, biology and natural science from 1937-1980. He earned his Ph.D. at Michigan State and was a resident fellow at California Tech in 1948. In 1958, Lewis studied at the Instituto Superior di Sanita in Rome. He has done research on fungus nutrition, succinic-less mutants of Neurospora, infection of rye with ergot fungus and a method of large volume spore production by this fungus. Lewis has written papers on the structure of knowledge and its potential for improving education. He believes that through continued work, science education can be largely converted from rote exercises into intellectually active leaming once teachers leam the logical structure of their science and put it to work in their teaching.