Proving a Point: Mathematics and Biology as One (A book review on Ian Stewart’s Mathematics of Life)

It was a mistake!

 “…biology was the branch of science recommended to students who preferred to avoid mathematics if at all possible.” –Ian Stewart.

Deciding what degree program I should take upon my university entry has been one of the crucial parts in college. I picked up BS Biology since it is my childhood dream and aside from that I thought it would focus on sciences and just a little bit of math.

I’ve never been so wrong.

Ian Stewart’s book entitled The Mathematics of Life discusses the connection of two fields that were never thought for a connection to exist: the world of technical terms and the world of numerical expressions.

Mathematics for Revolutionary Biology

 “There's no need for fiction... for the facts will always beat anything you fancy.”- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

            Biology has gone a long mile since its existence as a body of knowledge. From seeing the most distant star and the minutest object to naming things out of physical appearance to discovering what’s inside our own bodies are all scientific innovations. Stewart, in this book, has given the six revolutions that dramatically changed the course of biology into a highly sophisticated field of knowledge. These are: (1) invention of the microscope; (2) a systematic means of classifying species; (3) evidence of evolution; (4) expansion of the field of genetics; and (5) discovery of the structure of DNA. The sixth revolution is somewhat debatable among scientists, and according to him, is the most important field of the 21^st century biology: mathematics.

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

Biology has small mathematics they say.

Biology and mathematics can never incorporate they say.

Well, they are wrong.

Two essential parts in the application of the general scientific method of solving problems is testing the hypothesis and the discussion of the results. In the former, experimental designs in which statistics is vital, is important in setting up the scope of a particular study while in the latter, mathematics still plays a major character in discussing the results either by having graphical presentations, solving of equations and mathematical models. These are just few examples that have enriched biology into a more erudite form. In the early studies of biologists, we can say that mathematics has been underappreciated, as it is only regarded as a tool for analysis. However, Stewart emphasized that the success of the first gene sequencing as well as in molecular biology and biochemistry was all thanks to mathematics.

“You can either use clever chemistry to simplify the maths, or use clever maths to simplify the chemistry.”

Citing the Human Genome Project as example, the author explained that the usage of mathematics has been significant, yet more complicated in identifying the sequences of one long DNA strand. More often called as “greedy algorithm”, the most difficult part is to feed the computers the mathematical inputs and how to strategically sort a huge amount of data. It is because of its inconsistency in the overlapped fragments (since DNA undergoes a series of replication) which may lead to a different result and is prone to more miscalculations in the overlapped segments of the sequence. In this manner correlation of data, which is learned in statistics, is used to identify the chances of this phenomenon. When the “strongest association” is chosen, that huge amount of data fed in the computer will run a whole statistical analysis for it. From there, we may conclude the significance of a certain fragment involved in the sequencing.

I now pronounce you husband and wife

In the modern life sciences, biology and mathematics has been a happily married couple, although mathematics still is the secondary character in most researches. People assume that mathematical modeling is less imaginable by all means, but Stewart emphasized that this distinction of mathematics makes it the most useful tool. For the neophyte field of biomathematics, he advised that mathematical models need to be realistic and the study of biology is vital. As I quote him, “Looking back on the story of how biology started to embrace mathematics, one thing stands out: it was doing so long before anyone noticed.”

Conclusion

            I realized after finishing the book that I can work out biology with math.

           

            Personally, I was hooked on the rock-paper-scissors part where he stated the cleverness and equality of the game. To me it was just a simple childhood game, but in a mathematical sense, it has been displaying the concepts of probability, which I didn’t realize long enough before I read it. We didn’t recognize the “math” in it and how it affected us. He then relates this to the science of patterns exhibited by some species which is mainly genetics. Who would have thought that genetics and probability can work out together?

            It was fascinating to read a book where Stewart tries to explain how the unity of two unlikely bodies of knowledge paved the successes of modern scientific research. The author has explained thoroughly the biological concepts and effectively incorporated the connection of mathematics to them. I learned that viewing mathematics not as a tool, but a partner in studying biology will help us to understand more information and will provide us firm and solid evidences when we conduct our respective studies. Merging these two fields will open doors to a more effective results of researches and will prove a certain point: that mathematics has been there for biology and assisted it all the way to triumph.

            No man is an island, and so does some bodies of knowledge.

(Total word count: 900 excluding Title & Subtittles)