Introductory Science and Mathematics Education for 21st-Century Biologists

Galileo wrote that "the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics"; his quantitative approach to understanding the natural world arguably marks the beginning of modern science. Nearly 400 years later, the fragmented teaching of science in our universities still leaves biolog...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2004-02, Vol.303 (5659), p.788-790
Main Authors: Bialek, William, Botstein, David
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Biochemistry
Biological Science Disciplines - education
Biologists
Biology
Biomathematics
Biomedical Research - trends
Chemistry - education
Computational Biology - education
Curricula
Curriculum
Integration
Interdisciplinary Communication
Mathematics
Mathematics curricula
Mathematics education
Physical chemistry
Physics
Physics - education
Science Curriculum
Science education
Software
Study and teaching
Universities
Viewpoints
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Galileo wrote that "the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics"; his quantitative approach to understanding the natural world arguably marks the beginning of modern science. Nearly 400 years later, the fragmented teaching of science in our universities still leaves biology outside the quantitative and mathematical culture that has come to define the physical sciences and engineering. This strikes us as particularly inopportune at a time when opportunities for quantitative thinking about biological systems are exploding. We propose that a way out of this dilemma is a unified introductory science curriculum that fully incorporates mathematics and quantitative thinking.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.1095480