On 08/10/2007, K P <kpbotany(a)gmail.com> wrote:
No, this isn't true, biologists need the math
now more than ever.
It is not possible for an unassisted human to do anything useful with
the X ray diffraction pattern of a protein (it is possible for a
chemical of greater simplicity but there is little point in doing so.
It's nice to think that you can do math
without understanding it,
The computer does the math. The job of the human is to work out which
bits of the result it spits out are sane. While some knowledge of the
basic principles may come in handy a completely knowledge of the
relevant areas of chemistry is somewhat more useful
but
I do love being asked by PhDs to explain something to them because
they don't understand it because they don't have the math background.
I work in a technical field, and I produce results faster, more
accurately, and in a more interesting fashion than the other
technicians I work with who are clueless and limited by their math.
And better results than the researchers who are also clueless and
limited by their relatively low level math skills. It will be nice
for me job wise if people keep thinking like you, but the literature
we go through in discussions every day makes it absolutley clear that
scientists and technicians need more math not less, and departments
are upping the basic requirements for math. Grad students used to be
able to get in without the math background, making it up in their
first year or so--not the same case now.
How many chemists do you think can do Fourier transforms? a handful
maybe? Now how many can do extremely useful stuff with NMRs and
FT-IRs?
The templates are to warn readers not to trust
the content of the
article for specific reasons.
Not usefully.
I don't know what you're saying with this
last sentence.
NPOV and fact tags warn readers wikify and {{Expert}} do not.
--
geni
It's amazing there is a world in chemistry outside of x-ray
diffraction and fourier transforms and it is peopled by working
chemists who do math. And, although our wiki article is not clue to
it, x-ray diffraction is not wholey limited to chemists. And, again,
there are many more interesting things about what are going on with
x-rays that have all sorts of math involved in them besides fourier
transforms. But it's hard to tell that from Wikipedia's limited and
insistent viewpoint that math is either done by computers or advanced
theoretical mathematicians and no one in between.
I'll pass on that analysis. I only work in the world I work in.
Where people with lesser math skills find it detrimental.
KP