Why Computing has Become Essential to Contemporary Biology

Biological science has undergone dramatic changes over the last two centuries and the rate :

• From "stamp collecting" to hard science

  • "Endless forms, most beautiful" takes some time
  • How and why had to wait



• Pattern and mechanism

  • Sleuthing cause and effect from data
  • Observe - explain - predict - test >> observe - ...
  • Abstractions represent our understanding
    • In teaching the stupid box of silicon, we are are learning
    • Functional representation requires explicit assumptions, and demonstrates inadequacies
    • Living systems, of which we are one, represent aspects of the world in order to respond to it, ...



• Massive and complex

  • "Endless forms" causally coupled across scales from molecules to biosphere
  • The "genomic revolution"



• The key enablers

  • The computational chicken to the instrumentational egg
  • High-throughput instrumentation across the biological hierarchy
  • Living systems, of which we are one, represent aspects of the world in order to respond to it, ...