Hi all, I have been reading with great interest. I had yet another response. I lost Wilson right at the outset when he suggested we were losing great biologists because of lack of math skills (full disclosure: I was a math major). I have had the opposite experience, hinted at by other posters. That is, I find students applying with inadequate math skills (ie not being scared off). I have no experience to suggest that science-oriented students with strong biophilia are dissuaded by lack of math. Honestly, sometimes I wish more were!
Students may be steered away from some science areas because they worry about the math, but the math expectations of many biology/ecology programs are not high (not high eneough possibly) and many programs have excellent courses targeted to such students to give them the tools they need to do their own quantative research or to at least talk with appropriate colleagues. Students with field skills, organismal identification skills and lab skills are still very welcome in most programs: I don't know where the idea that students think ecology is math-heavy comes from. Whether it should be math heavy, etc is another debate (about which I have opinions), separate from whether students avoid ecology because of math. I just don't think very many do. dave PS I do actually believe ecology should be a post-calculus subject, and that mathematics is A (not the) language of science (taxonomy being another) On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 1:01 PM, Ganter, Philip <pgan...@tnstate.edu> wrote: > 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 >
