May 26, 2009
I just read this great post on my friend Noah Brier's blog, and it got me thinking...
A generally tangential thought - the way Strogatz starts his article kinda baffles me, "unlike Olivia and the previous guest writers, I’m not a biologist, evolutionary or otherwise. In fact, I’m (gasp!) a mathematician."
Why is strange for a mathematician to comment about science? And further, why is it that the various sciences silo themselves? Why does it continue to be an anomaly for different disciplines to team up on a proect and render a brilliant result?
I remember in High School and at NYU not understanding why there wasn't more of an explicit effort to teach science (including math) and art at the same time. The connections are uncanny. Understanding how lenses on film cameras work requires a solid understanding of math and physics. Yet as a student at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, in the film program, I wasn't required to take one math class in order to earn a BFA. How is that possible?
Strogatz's disclaimer reminds me of this TED talk where, "Emily Oster re-examines the stats on AIDS in Africa from an economic perspective and reaches a stunning conclusion: Everything we know about the spread of HIV on the continent is wrong."
Apparently economists and virologists don't talk much.
Taking this another step, I think the reason for my concern above is similar to the Dark Data Wired talks about in this article both Noah and I referenced recently...
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