@SynBio1

Jake Wintermute 🧬/acc [verified] @SynBio1
This classic xkcd captures a certain belief in nerd hierarchy that used to prevail in the natural sciences:

psychology < biology < chemistry < physics < math

The more formal disciplines made more progress in the 19th and 20th centuries. Physics and math demanded rigorous symbolic analysis while chemistry and biology were stuck with relatively simple statistics. Math was "on top" - the most demanding, important and pure version of STEM.

This hierarchy had social consequences. I admit I've had physics envy at certain points in my career. I've been teased about working on "merely applied chemistry." But more importantly it drove real research trends.

If you believe that math is at the top of a purity hierarchy, you might infer that the way to improve any particular field of science is to add more math. My field, systems biology, was created with this explicit motivation. Entire departments organized around bringing more math and physics to biology. Entire careers dedicated to climbing the nerd hierarchy.

I don't think this approach was wrong. Biology has benefitted enormously from the adoption of more formal approaches.

But AI has killed the old king. Math is no longer on top of the sciences. There is really no doubt that I [cut off]

sciencesystems biologytwitteraiepistemics

[continuing from previous screenshot]
If you believe that math is at the top of a purity hierarchy, you might infer that the way to improve any particular field of science is to add more math. My field, systems biology, was created with this explicit motivation. Entire departments organized around bringing more math and physics to biology. Entire careers dedicated to climbing the nerd hierarchy.

I don't think this approach was wrong. Biology has benefitted enormously from the adoption of more formal approaches.

But AI has killed the old king. Math is no longer on top of the sciences. There is really no doubt that I can generate a proof faster than the median Fields Medalist can perform a lab experiment. The more formalizable an approach to research, the more automated it will become.

What does this mean? Maybe we're entering an era of "biologizing" the sciences. Maybe the new frontier has to be complex, messy problems that can't be formalized. Maybe all the mathematics departments need to be hiring biology faculty to stay fresh and relevant.

I'm really not sure. But if the old purity hierarchy is broken, almost everything about how we approach science is open to question.

[below: xkcd 'FIELDS ARRANGED BY PURITY' comic, arrow 'MORE PURE' — Sociologist: 'Sociology is just applied psychology'; Psychologist: 'Psychology is just applied biology.'; Biologist: 'Biology is just applied chemistry'; Chemist: 'Which is just applied physics. It's nice to be on top.'; off to the right, someone: 'Oh, hey, I didn't see you guys all the way over there.']

sciencesystems biologytwitteraiepistemicsxkcd