You Should Consider Modeling

Michael White has a post at Adaptive Complexity about the value of building mathematical models in understanding biological systems. "There is a big gap between biophysicists and physiologists - in the realm of molecular, cell, and developmental biology, the value of building mathematical models is not widely accepted," he writes, noting that part of the reason may be how much progress has been made in molecular biology without having to lean on such models. Still, he says, biologists would do well if they learned to love this approach. "Molecular biologists should care about mathematical models because it is only through such models that we can study dynamical properties, and dynamical properties are interesting and important," White adds.