"The 2026 release of Principles of Biology, along with previous editions, has been crafted with a very important goal in mind: Give students an opportunity to develop critical-thinking skills. Critical thinking is the mental process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, various experiences including reading, observation, experimentation, reflection, and/or oral communication. It provides a guide to belief and action. A person who is skillful at critical thinking can draw reasonable conclusions from a collection of information and can discriminate between useful and less useful details to solve problems and to make decisions"--.