Boy, I wonder if Ol' Karl Popper is spinning in his grave! For those who have followed this thread, I must say that no arguments for the value of math or stories illustrating that fact will disprove Wilson's thesis. I am reminded of Pauli's opinion that an article "wasn't even wrong". We seem to have many assertions that are at right angles to the direction of Wilson's argument and, although they intersect it at the word "math", they can't move his argument either forward or backward.
Some have taken the time to actually disagree with Wilson, to assert that there is no, little or diminishing room for biologists who are not skilled at math. This is an arguable point, especially if one takes the weaker position that room is diminishing. But, given even the weaker position and considering the diminished math skills of high school graduates (when I enrolled in college, introductory calculus was the most basic math available to me but the school at which I teach today has, including "developmental" math, up to 2 years of math before students take calculus and most STEM students cannot place into calculus), you can see why Wilson is concerned. Jane argues that we must bridge the gap through better math education. Hurrah to her efforts (the course description in her blog seems very encouraging). The role of math in both biology and biology education is truly and evergreen issue. As a grad student, I witnessed a wonderful spontaneous debate between Robert May and Nelson Hairston on the role of modeling in ecology. Tremendous salvos from some very heavy artillery, yet both sides remained standing at the end. The lesson I learned that day was that no single approach to biology, no matter how powerful, was a sufficient approach to understanding living things. As I mentioned in my first post on this subject, I teach intro stats and I pay careful attention to manipulating my student's attitudes about the value of math to them. But I will never say to them that math should be the gatekeeper of their ambition as biologists. Phil Ganter
