>>13391270I am a math-worshipping-fag, but this is obviously untrue.
The so-called CRSIPR revolution came about with little assistance from sysbio, combo, etc. etc. Just benchwork and a molecular biologist's well-honed intuition.
That's not to say that mathematical methods will not shape the future of biology. I think they will. But it's kind of a wrong and boring take to think that this fuels science.
Terry Tao, for instance, has probably not driven modern science forward outside of mathematics with the exception of compressed sensing (and I do not intend to shit on that work).
I do agree that better integrating mathematics and biology, or even finding more rigorous foundations for much of the work in machine learning, will get us to better places, faster. But it is silly to pretend mathematics is necessary.
