Maths becomes biology's magic number
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Maths becomes biology's magic number
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Re: Maths becomes biology's magic number
#2Well, if you want to become a doctor, at least in the US, knowing some biology will certainly help you on the first step of licensing exams... :-)
But the general point does hold that yes, a high level of math or CS training is advantageous for anyone moving into a career in the life sciences, since it appears that that's where much of the foreseeable growth (in careers and research funding) seems to be.
It's also been said by many that it's easier to learn some biology after training rigorously in CS/math, rather than the other way around. Dudley Herschbach (a Nobel-prize winning chemist) once said to me that his one piece of advice for young researchers would be simply, "Learn as much math as you can."
Re: Maths becomes biology's magic number
#3What's also interesting is that it seems the inverse is also true for computing. The human brain is a very cool processor and I think in the coming decades it's not super far fetched to see synapses arise as synthetic computers much like the inverse has been true for the past couple decades.
Re: Maths becomes biology's magic number
#4As a physician who was a mathematics major in undergrad, I completely agree.
An astonishing amount of biology is rather mechanistic, systematic, and logical. I feel my math (and minor programming) experience trained my brain in such a way as to understand complex biological interactions more intuitively.
I'm not bragging here, but while I was actually understanding the theories behind what we were learning, on a fundamental systemic basis, many of my classmates were essentially relying on memorization. They passed the exams fine, and make okay doctors, but they can't explain things to patients well and their research ideas are very limited and safe.
Re: Maths becomes biology's magic number
#5As a physician who was a mathematics major in undergrad, I completely agree. An astonishing amount of biology is rather mechanistic, systematic, and logical. I feel my math (and minor programming) experience trained my brain in such a way as to understand complex biological interactions more intuitively. I'm not bragging here, but while I was actually understanding the theories behind what we were learning, on a fund…
But how did your biology undergrad go?
Re: Maths becomes biology's magic number
#6[deleted]
Re: Maths becomes biology's magic number
#7Not directly related to medicine, but I advise every high schooler and undergrad that I mentor to take as much math and/or computer science as they can if they are interested in biology or neuroscience (or to major in physics). There are not going to be PhD level jobs given out for graduate work that was essentially being a lab tech for 6 years, no matter how much cheap labor current professors need/want. That said, I also tell them that if they want to be successful they need to read and understand most of Molecular Biology of the Cell because it is the foundation for understanding the fundamental parts of biological systems.
Re: Maths becomes biology's magic number
#8I'm a physician with BS EE/CS. The problem solving skills and the view of systems certainly helped understanding biology/medicine mechanistically. I actually keep track of doctors with undergrad degrees in math/engineering because I've noticed we do see medicine differently than our colleagues who did not have this training.
I work with health analytics and knowing both worlds is unquestionably helpful.
Interestingly, I've noticed several PhDs in Physics or EE change their careers to study biology using their math background.
Re: Maths becomes biology's magic number
#9Mathematics can spoil you in some ways. It's all very well to show that your longitudinal treatment study rejected a null hypothesis at p of 0.05 or better. It's another to prove that a theorem is true in all possible universes. I'm married to a doctor and we have medical/science friends so I regularly have the pleasure of wielding my mathematician's overbearing sense of superiority when it comes to standards of proof.
Re: Maths becomes biology's magic number
#10Mathematics can spoil you in some ways. It's all very well to show that your longitudinal treatment study rejected a null hypothesis at p of 0.05 or better. It's another to prove that a theorem is true in all possible universes. I'm married to a doctor and we have medical/science friends so I regularly have the pleasure of wielding my mathematician's overbearing sense of superiority when it comes to standards of proo…
Science doesn't have "standards of proof" because it doesn't have proofs in the first place, nor is it supposed to.
Also, when you say "in all possible universes", do you actually mean "in all models of mathematical theory"?