We describe a graduate course in quantitative biology that is based on original path-breaking papers in diverse areas of biology; each of these papers depends on quantitative reasoning and theory as well as experiment. Close reading and discussion of these papers allows students with backgrounds in physics, computational sciences or biology to learn essential ideas and to communicate in the languages of disciplines other than their own.
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It is clear that the future of biology will require combinations of skills that are rarely found in individual scientists today. The existing educational system teaches biologists very few mathematical or computational skills, and gives scientists with backgrounds in physics and informatics comparably limited exposure to even the most basic biological phenomena and principles. The problem begins early in undergraduate education, and by the doctoral level there are severe interdisciplinary communication difficulties that are encountered by even the most motivated of collaborators.
Jeg liker veldig godt kursets vekt på konkrete problemstillinger - i form av et knippe banebrytende artikler - som et utgangspunkt for læring.
Kursene omtalt over er mest et forsøk på å lappe sammen sprikende faglige bakgrunner - i form av ulike begreper, tilnærminger, og standard verktøy - sprik som er resultatet av for tidlig spesialisering innen naturvitenskapene. Princeton har tatt skrittet fullt ut med et mer fundamentalt grep, nemlig et helhetlig naturvitenskaplig pensum for lavere grad:
Integrated Science is a revolutionary new introductory science curriculum developed at Princeton, intended for students considering a career in science. By breaking down traditional disciplinary barriers, a series of courses taken in the freshman and sophomore years provides students with first-rate preparation for a major in any of the core scientific disciplines, and in such a way that helps retain the connections to the other disciplines. The curriculum is founded on the expectation that much of the most important science of the future, though based on the classical disciplines, will lie in areas that span two or more of them.
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