Biology is too complex to be unified by mathematics, finds Marc Feldman.
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Feldman, M. Mathematics: Life models. Nature 476, 396 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/476396a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/476396a
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William Anderson
Militates not mitigates
Juan Carlos MARTINEZ-GARCIA
I agree with Marc Feldman's comments, excepting with his final words, which is to say "The fragmentation of biology and its maths is likely to continue for a long time." This statement implies that the fragmentation of biology and its asociated maths will finish with time, which is a matter of debate. Mathematics is fact is a language <del>a wonderful one indeed</del> that seems to be very constrained to tackle biological complexity. Computer programs as models of biological system seems to be a good approach to face complexity issues (e.g. process algebras apply very nicely as far as the description of complex gene regulatory networks is concerned). It is my opinion that an excess in the process of mathematization of biology is at the origin of some reluctance of biologists when considering mathematical tools. Sometimes more thats is less.
Ufuk Kirik
I have enjoyed reading this review by Marc Feldman, as an aspiring bio-informatician, however I would have liked to see a couple of references to books that do go into the fields (such as computational biology and modern statistics) that he mentions in his review as a drawback in The Mathematics of Life.