Bashing Nature is almost cliche at this point, anyone in the research world knows about the issues there by now. However this is comical:
"...in which he describes the rejection by the journal Nature of an obituary he was asked to write"
I mean, who in their right mind rejects an obit that they asked someone to write? The power that the Nature editors wield is awesome in the ivory tower, and it has gone to their heads.
That said, I was a mathy undergrad and now am in a neuro PhD program. The gulf is large indeed. I think the largest difference for me is the relation to science in general. As a mathy person, we are all about the predictive powers of science. I do A, then B happens at time T. In bio, it is not that at all. Bio is an observational science. I see A, then I see B at time T. Sure, you can make predictions, but what these events all have to do with each other is almost impossible to predict in a living organism/environment. As such, when bio people hear Partial Differential Equation, they go running for the hills.
Case in point, PDEs are no big deal for me, I took an entire class on them. But in one class we had to read a paper on using PDEs to model genetic interactions with a sugar input and then write up 1 single page on it (with some guidelines). Oh man, the riot! 59 of the other people in the class were up in arms about this. They tried to get the points on the paper halved, then eliminated, then the teacher to rescind the assignment, which they were all successful in doing. Then the non-stop complaining ensued for weeks in the halls. All because we had to read a paper with PDEs written out in it. My lord.
On the plus side, it leaves a huge hole that none of the bio people want to crawl down. This is a positive for mathy people, as the bio is ore memorization than anything. The bio field is rocking and rolling already from the intrusion that mathy people are mediating. Now, if your lab does not have a CS major in it, you are going to fall behind. The idea that quants and big data people are necessary is just starting to grab hold of the bio world. Now is a good time to get into grad school in the bio field if you have a math background as they are just now starting to realize they need you. It's just hard to get through classes though.
"Bio is more memorization than anything" - no offense, but this was not so much my experience of biology and related fields. At the same time, I've noticed that many math folks make no effort to reach out to the other side - recognizing that PDEs are a big deal to some people, intimidating, and not exactly terribly approachable. Or assuming because they know the math, surely the biology will just fall into place.
I have seen some very interesting math papers with appalling biology in them.
I think the issue I have with this post, and the article in general, is the very one sided "You need us, take more math" tone. With funding being harder and harder to get in pure math, math also needs applications - biology among them as it potentially unlocks NIH funding. It's not a one-sided failure.
> At the same time, I've noticed that many math folks make no effort to reach out to the other side - recognizing that PDEs are a big deal to some people, intimidating, and not exactly terribly approachable.
Being a mathematician, I don't know any other way than to say: "Read this and this text and understand it. Then you'll grasp what I'm talking about.". I can tell you that even for many math students, say, PDEs are intimedating and not exactly terribly approachable at the beginning. But the difference is that by reading texts, hearing lectures etc. they simply get over it and get quite used to them. So, I believe, the mathematicians you talk about are quite honest in the sense that they are really doing their best, but simply don't know a better way to talk about their topic.
I would suggest starting with "What happened, and why I did it". Having explained my fair share of stochastic simulations of systems of ODEs to clinicians, I think the core of the problem is heading into the mathematical tall grass way to quickly.
> I think the core of the problem is heading into the mathematical tall grass way to quickly.
In my experience non-mathematicians don't like listening to loooong mathematical talks (although those would be necessary for introducing the topic in a more smooth way).
That said, I was a mathy undergrad and now am in a neuro PhD program. The gulf is large indeed. I think the largest difference for me is the relation to science in general. As a mathy person, we are all about the predictive powers of science. I do A, then B happens at time T. In bio, it is not that at all. Bio is an observational science. I see A, then I see B at time T. Sure, you can make predictions, but what these events all have to do with each other is almost impossible to predict in a living organism/environment. As such, when bio people hear Partial Differential Equation, they go running for the hills.
Case in point, PDEs are no big deal for me, I took an entire class on them. But in one class we had to read a paper on using PDEs to model genetic interactions with a sugar input and then write up 1 single page on it (with some guidelines). Oh man, the riot! 59 of the other people in the class were up in arms about this. They tried to get the points on the paper halved, then eliminated, then the teacher to rescind the assignment, which they were all successful in doing. Then the non-stop complaining ensued for weeks in the halls. All because we had to read a paper with PDEs written out in it. My lord.
On the plus side, it leaves a huge hole that none of the bio people want to crawl down. This is a positive for mathy people, as the bio is ore memorization than anything. The bio field is rocking and rolling already from the intrusion that mathy people are mediating. Now, if your lab does not have a CS major in it, you are going to fall behind. The idea that quants and big data people are necessary is just starting to grab hold of the bio world. Now is a good time to get into grad school in the bio field if you have a math background as they are just now starting to realize they need you. It's just hard to get through classes though.